


But

by flowerrichie



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Lives, Friends With Benefits, Future Fic, M/M, Post-Season/Series 03, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-17
Updated: 2021-02-17
Packaged: 2021-03-12 13:29:38
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 30,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29510418
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/flowerrichie/pseuds/flowerrichie
Summary: "But-" Steve starts. "I've already heard this. There's always a but""But things should stay like they are" Billy whispers. He takes a drag. "You know that""You always say should. That's what I don't like" the other says and his eyes start burning, so he blinks hoping he won't start crying there, in front of Billy. "You don't let yourself go. There are always things you should do and you shouldn't, that's not what you want or who you-""I'm trying to survive this place""Do you think you're the only one?" Steve looks down, disbelief in his voice. "Do you think I like this town? That I don't want to go away? I want to. But I'm not trying to sabotage myself in the meantime. Don't you want to be… Happy?"
Relationships: Billy Hargrove/Steve Harrington
Comments: 2
Kudos: 21





	But

**Author's Note:**

> I never thought I would have read/write a Billy x Steve fic, but here its. Honestly, it took me a lot of rewatches to ship them, even I always found them interesting on their own. Then the ship sailed.  
> It's a post season 3/Billy doesn't die and, well, my English isn't perfect but I did my best. I couldn't correct my mistakes with some chromes extensions that I usually use, because it is so damn long and it refused to help me out with corrections, but I re-read it a couple of times so I'm hopeful (I know there will be mistakes anyway). It's almost 50 Word pages.

Billy is sitting on the edge of the window, the room around him drowning in the dark and only the light belonging to the moon illuminating enough to not be pitched back. Lying on a side, Steve observes through his eyelids the silhouette of the boy, dark contrasting the sky out of the window, as he takes a drag and another. He observes as Billy's hands take the cigarette out of his mouth, between his fingers, and a little burning red dot moves at his every action. A cloud of smoke is exhaled from time to time and Steve just looks at this barely visible picture and stays silent, still, extremely quiet. 

At some point, Billy's cigarette burns out and stands tall from the wooden edge of the other boy's room, as he slips away from the window and from Steve's view. He walks quietly and around the dark space, bare feet on the cold floor, as he reaches the free side of the bed: the boy already lying feels the mattress shifting under the pressure of the new body again on it, when a familiar warmth starts to radiate from it. Steve stays still, giving Billy his back and pretending he didn't spend the last five minutes or so watching him smoking peacefully, but surely thoughtful. Pretending he probably was more interested in falling asleep after the nice sex they had. Pretending he doesn't want to turn and get closer to the warmth source: tall, athletic, rarely smiling, a lot moody. Steve doesn't want to _touch_ , but feeling closer would be nice enough. 

"I know you're awake" is Billy's statement, whispers loud enough to cut the silence of the room, as he gets comfortable at the other's back, probably squeezing the pillow between his head and his arm, like he usually does fall asleep. 

Steve turns on his other side, facing the boy's next to him. "I know that you know"

There's a moment of silence between them, separated by a couple of inches in the nice and soft sheets spread over Steve's comfortable mattress. Billy would probably add _expensive_ , but they aren't talking about the Harringtons money for once and it stays unsaid. 

"I'm gonna stick for just another while" Billy murmurs and Steve almost rolls his eyes. Instead, he refrains himself and rolls on his back, until he's facing the dark ceiling. He sighs as quietly as he can, not sure he wants the other to hear. "I can't stay" 

Steve makes a face. 

"I didn't ask you to" he murmurs into the religious silence, feeling the need to add _I never ask you to_ that, like many other things, stays unsaid. 

"You sighted" Billy says and maybe there's a bit of amusement in his tone, but the seriousness of the topic wins over everything else.

"It's just my way to breathe sometimes" Steve makes up, not knowing what else to add, as he links his fingers over his naked chest. Billy doesn't move from his side of the bed, not even flinches enough for the other to feel the mattress shifting. "You can go, you know? Now. If you have to"

There's a moment of heavy silence, maybe a couple of long seconds that to Steve seems like hours, until it's Billy's time to sigh and the other boy is not sure what's coming.

"I can stay a little bit longer" Billy repeats and his tone doesn't let any emotion out, letting Steve wander in the darkness of the room and of their feelings. He feels, instead, Billy's eyes on his profile even though he can't really see in the darkness. 

"Until I feel asleep, so you can leave?" Steve asks in a rush, not really planning on saying it aloud, especially with that accusatory tone. He sighs again, then turns to face Billy and looks in his general direction. He can barely spot his head and his features, but no details of his face. No piercing eyes, no freckles on the bridge of his nose, no curls around his temples. "Shit. Sorry. I'm just-" 

"Nervous?" Billy asks. 

"Tired" Steve concludes, blinking a few times and, finally, slipping closer to the other body, into a moment of bravery. He makes sure to not touch Billy, anyway, with his body, except with the hand that moves from his own side, then down the sheets, until he reaches the other's skin. Steve is used to Billy's stomach now, the scars that are too big and deep to ever fade away and the sewed skin that is soft, but not smooth like the rest of his abdomen. As Steve's fingers follow the scars up Billy's stomach, he feels the other relaxes. 

At the beginning, the first time they had sex, Steve remembers how Billy's eyes flinched in fear and how his body tensed, when his once classmate tried to get rid of the t-shirts between them, as their lips were pressed together and their bodies were half lying on the Harringtons couch in the living room. It took Steve a moment to realize _why_ , in the instant of confusion and excitement they found themselves tangled. Then something hit him up and they eventually talked about it, one moving his eyes uncomfortably away, the other assuring that there wasn't anything to be ashamed of. The Billy from school -cocky, violent, messy, extroverted in his own way, comfortable in his own skin- is long gone, the one in Steve's bed is a more introverted one, someone who mostly tries to hide into the shadows of his past, so people don't mind him like they used to, and he can just survive like he's not really there, in the old cold Hawkins, sources of many troubles and a very few pleasures. 

It's been one year, maybe and half, since Billy showed Steve's his scars, because he told him that he should have been _proud to be alive_ in a way that Billy couldn't disagree, even though the thought of dying crossed his mind many times. After and before the crazy summer of 1985.

It's been a bit more than three years -almost _and half_ \- since then. It took Billy something like ten months to recover after the 4th of July, until he could walk and mostly breath on his own, without machines keeping him alive and the constant pain following him around, and Steve always made sure to ask Max how he was doing. At the beginning, the most common answer was _he's lucky to be alive_ and Steve couldn't do anything except nodding, understanding. 

When Billy showed up in town the first few times was weird: Robin was still around, working at the video shop with Steve and trying to make things easier with Billy, being loquacious for both of them and trying to talk about anything but not about their last unpleasant encounter at the Starcourt. Steve's throat was always dry, as Billy approached the counter to pay for Max and his rented movie and he never showed much interest in talking more than what was necessary.

Eventually, Billy started _living_ in Hawkins again, showing up more frequently and meeting casually Steve around the town, he got a job at the general store, where once Joyce Byers used to work, and looked less scared of his own shadow. Steve isn't sure they have been friends during the year between Billy's months of recovery and the start of their _affair_ , it was more a weird relationship of two lost boys hanging out always more frequently because they knew what the other had on their back and because, maybe, they both felt lonely. Now, the scars and the tears aren't a secret anymore and Steve's hand caresses Billy's torso until he reaches his collarbone and then up to his neck.

"I'm sorry" Steve repeats and his fingers brush Billy's cheeks, gently like he's made of glass and, maybe, he is. "It's been a long day" 

There's no answer and Steve's hand stops there, burning over Billy's skin, and stays placed on that precise spot, at least until he can remember. Eventually, his eyes flutter shut and the silence is interrupted just by Billy's regular breathing, which cradles Steve into his unconscious sleep.

When the day comes through the window, Billy is gone and there's really nothing surprising about it. 

  


After the accident at the Starcourt, Hawkins citizens started filling again the shops and the streets of the town. The mall had been fixed and rebuilt again, but there was less excitement around the place, so the small businesses started waking up from their brief sleep and welcomed clients again. Now, Hawkins looks less like a ghost town, even though it's still a shitty one, Steve considers, as he parks his car and stops the engine right in front of the general store. 

His _Nike_ walks the sidewalk like he's light, bouncing around because he's in a good mood and the weather is nice enough to not break the bubble in which he woke up that morning and that kept him thrilled during the whole day. It's almost 5:00 pm when he glances through the glasses of the general store and can't spot a familiar face, so he pushes the door open and walks through it. 

Steve isn't there to buy anything, really, because he doesn't _need_ anything, but usually he always tends to collect a bunch of items -mostly candies and questionable snacks, rarely not edible objects- and buy them just to eat them when he's miserably alone at night and watches movies. At the moment, his kitchen furniture is full of fat and sugary snacks, but he takes a bunch of them anyway, as he walks down the first aisle and looks around. 

He knows that he should put everything back in his place and stop spending money on unhealthy food, but he doesn't mind doing it for Billy, the one that he's now looking for. Steve contributes to the shop's economy, so the place can stay open and the boy can keep the job: he needs it, surely because of the money, but also as a distraction from what's wrong in his life, and Steve wants to help, because he can afford it and because he knows that Billy probably thinks he do it just to have an excuse to come inside, before sneaking out. If he would know the main reason that pushes Steve to do it, he would ask him to stop, so the boy keeps it playfully. 

There's a lady looking through some personal cleaning items, seeming really focused on smelling every bottle of shower gels, as Steve hears Billy's voice for a fraction of second and decides to follow it when it turns into a light chuckle. He's probably talking to a client and Steve is not wrong, when he boldly approaches the aisle and walks over, hands full of things and lips cracked in a smile. Two heads turn towards him. 

One is familiar, almost too much, with his now short hair falling around his face that isn't tanned like it used to be, but that still shines under the right light. Billy's hair was a questionable but distinctive feature since he arrived in Hawkins, but he told Steve that they have been cut during the rehab to make things easier and, after that, Billy made them grow enough for his curls to show up fiercely, but keep them short compared to how they were when the pair met during high school. He looks less full of himself, to Steve's humble opinion, more _approachable_ even, but Billy's unfairly attractive with every haircut: even when they first met after his ten months rehabilitation and he was showing a cold buzzcut.

Now, standing in the aisle of the shop, Steve notices another figure standing in front of Billy and the smile falters a bit. It's a girl, maybe around their age, with really short black hair and skin paler than Steve, her face is particularly squared and her green eyes, gleaming even under the artificial lights of the place, are a punch in the stomach. Steve swallows, staring away from the two and then glancing at the shelf around him, like he's looking for something in particular. It's the garden sector and he pretends he's not awful at keeping plants alive.

"So" a loud voice that doesn't belong to Billy says, clearly caught off guard by Steve's previous interruption, but not giving him more attention than a quick glance at his arrival. "See you soon then" 

"Yeah, sure" Billy murmurs and there's a certain tension in the way he says those words and then clears his voice, contrasting the previous one that Steve heard wandering into the store. He pretends to be interested in a couple of fertilizers, as a pair of feet move aways and silence falls over the aisle. On the other side of the shop, a voice asks someone else how they can help a plausible customer and, Steve guesses, it's probably one of the other employers approaching the lady that was sniffing shower gels. 

"Stop staring at the gardening stuff" Billy says not too loudly but not too low neither and, when Steve turns, he's closer and his lips are contracted in a tiny line. He glances at the snacks in his arms. "And you should stop buying that shit" 

The other's eyebrows lift, hoping they can not talk about the girl that just left and that Billy was smiling at. Because Steve noticed it, it was impossible to not. "I like them" 

"You have your kitchen packed" Billy states and the thought that, sometimes, he's the one eating them, sitting around the Harringtons house if the boy's parents aren't at home, warm Steve's heart enough to put a shy smile back on his lips. Billy walks away, dressed into his uniform shirt and blue jeans and the other follows, until they are near the cash register. 

"So" Steve starts, letting everything go on the counter by the exit end picking a pack of cigarettes to add to the list. Billy glances at him and to all the stuff lying over the surface, before sighing and starting lazily his check. Steve doesn't want to ask about the girl who the boy was smiling to, but shouldn't a friend do so? He thinks, like he always does, what he would do with Dustin, or even Jonathan, and the truth is that he doesn't like the answer. With his friends he would ask about it, pushing their buttons and even give them some advice or opinions about it, but with Billy there's always something that stops him. They are friends, of course Steve can now say they are, and they talk and tell each other some kind of things, but it always happens when they are alone, in the intimate place that a bedroom is, because Billy isn't Jonathan. Billy sleeps with Steve and this is a big obstacle when it comes to talking about relationships. Their complicated one where the line between friendship and romance and pure sexuality is blurry, sometimes firmly present, others completely absent, or the ones they have with others. Can now Steve bring the girl that just left the shop up? Would Billy see it as a friendly statement, or would he think he's getting attached and interested in the boy's personal life? It would be the first time that Steve sees Billy genuinely smiling to someone who isn't his strict circle, which means only Max and Steve lately, and he's also been out of those kind of interactions for almost years, hiding from the world for too long. Deciding to give it a try would be logic and fair, at this point. Somehow, however, Steve is not sure he feels comfortable thinking about it, as his stomach turns up and down a couple of times. Suddenly, _monsters_ are his comfort zone. 

When he's about to talk again and ask what he's not really dying to ask, with his most chill tone, Billy beats him. 

"Doctor Owens rescheduled my appointment on Friday" he says slowly and lowly, trying to not be heard. Steve blinks, brought out of his thoughts. "Can you… Do you think, you can-"

"Yeah. Sure" Steve's mouth says in a hurry, nodding a couple of times, like he wants to underline the positivity of his answer. "No problem. Tell me the time" 

"The usual" Billy replies, eyes low and hands counting the last items Steve is buying. The cash register says it's a 15$ check and, even before the other boy can tell the price loudly, he looks for his wallet and leaves a couple of notes over the counter. Billy's looking at him, he knows that because he _feels_ it, but once the money is displayed between the pair, his attention shifts back from Steve to his change. When Billy gives a couple of coins back to him, his hand lingers on purpose longer on Steve's one: the customer looks up, as he realizes they are touching a lot longer than they are used to when in public, cheeks flushing red and eyes wide. Billy's gaze stays on Steve's and then he lets him go. 

"Thank you" he says in an extremely low and serious tone. It's not frequent to hear the boy say something simple like _thanks_ or _sorry_ , like he's scared that such gentleness could backfire him in some way. It happened a couple of times with Steve and he knows Billy is opening more than he would ever do in the past, back to his worst and meaner days. But, lately, their relationship is a lot different from what they used to have during school, before the monsters to fight and the aftermath of it: they have sex, but they also talk and try to walk around each other without hurt the other. It doesn't mean that a _thank you_ doesn't leave Steve a bit surprised, whenever he hears it. It's something so simple compared to their serious intimated topics, that it always catches him off guard. 

"No problem" Steve whispers and he nods once, then twice. He cracks a smile at Billy. "Don't ever say it" 

The other swallows and then nods back, like a mutual silent agreement between them, words left unsaid, before he clears his throat. "I can't take a break. I've already had it and-" 

The thing is that, when one of the two shows up at the other's work place, they usually hide somewhere on the back to make out, smoke, or even do some small chit chats. But they can't always escape their responsibilities, so Steve isn't surprised to hear Billy saying those words, implying he can't leave the place for some kisses, or maybe a blowjob. Steve shrugs. 

"That's fine" he assures and, this time, smiles encouraging to Billy's contracted face. "And, oh, my parents are home for two days, so-" 

"See you around" the blonde boy answers and shakes his head, catching the meaning behind Steve's half-sentence, because that's how they mostly talk when they are in public. Half words, half phrases.

Steve grabs his goodies, filling a paper bag, and makes eye contact with Billy on the other side of the counter. "My shift starts after lunch tomorrow. I'll be there earlier, maybe-"

"Yeah" Billy nods, not really surprised about the implicit request to meet for lunch, or around lunch. Usually food is part of the plan, but not exclusively. "Sounds good to me" 

Steve winks, like he doesn't care about anyone seeing him, or them, and starts walking away. "See you around then, Hargrove" 

  


The thing about driving Billy to his appointments and waiting for him is that Steve always has plenty of time to think and _overthink_. About the boy, about himself, about their futures. 

Steve knows he's lucky, sitting in his not so new car, but that still cost more than he's now proud to admit. He knows he's lucky because, whenever things go wrong or he just needs something important, he has his parents always ready to pay for everything. He doesn't want that anymore, but he would be a liar if he'd tell that he doesn't use their wealth and financial support from time to time. He does, but just because they seem to genuinely can't not take care of him and help him out, even though he tries to limitate their interferences with his life: he told them that he wanted to provide himself goodies and extras, as the gas for his car or his clothes, at least, considering he doesn't pay for a rent and bills. They didn't seem sure about his intentions and his dad asked him to work in the family business _again_ , but Steve made sure they understood he was serious about it. 

He's saving for his future what he's not spending, but whenever he thinks about it, about what he's really saving those money for, he doesn't really have an answer. Sometimes it's saving up until he has enough to go somewhere where he should start over, without friends or family and hoping to find a purpose, build himself a life on his own. But loneliness scares him. Others, it's moving maybe in Chicago, where Robin lives now, and seeing if they can arrange something together and help each other. She always proposed it to him through the phone, or when she comes back from college for the holidays, but he never mentioned he really considers it from time to time. 

Steve is twenty-one and he's a young adult who started to understand the real meaning of money, not the one about expensive cars and luxurious wristwatches, but the one linked to his own freedom, that is essential for the personal growth he went through in the past years. He doesn't want to renounce any of this, even though accepting his parents' money would be easier. Simpler. 

Billy makes him think because they are _so_ different, yet so similar, especially about how they are managing their lives at the moment. They are both still living with their families in old shitty Hawkins, they're working their asses off for _earning_ their eventual futures and they have a shared trauma that works as a glue between the pair. 

One of the main differences between the two is that, while Steve's dad is an asshole, who doesn't really believe his own son is gonna make something good with his life, but still gives him a roof over his head, Billy's dad is a higher level asshole. He let his son pay the rent, considering he's not a minor anymore and he would prefer to know him out of his house and life, than having him still around. Fortunately, Billy doesn't see much of him, working even extra hours to stay away from his dad as much as he can and appreciating the money that comes from it as well. When Steve asked him why he didn't just leave after the ten months of recovery, or simply moved out of the house, Billy shrugged and told him that he made a ton of mistakes and, learning from them, he couldn't risk shifting his dad's _physical attention_ from him to Max. Or even Susan, even though he still isn't a big fan of her. 

So Billy's plan is clear and well written and Steve is a bit jealous about how sure and confident the other seems, whenever he talks about it: work hard until Max's graduation, save everything while avoiding any unpleasant interaction with his dad and leave to go back to California, once there's nothing more in Hawkins for him. He doesn't have a car anymore, he takes the bus to go to work, but Billy's eyes glow up everytime he mentions going back to his mom, in the land of the perpetual sun, making Steve's stomach turn upside down for many reasons. He always feels guilty about it. 

Steve is so focused wandering about the possibility to see Billy leaving, before he can really choose what to do with his own life, that he almost misses the boy walking toward him and the parked car, with his hands in his jacket and his face furrowed a bit. Steve is sitting in the hood of his dark vehicle, facing woods in front of the Hawkins lab, source of many troubles and now just half working, when he hears Billy's steps and, turning, they exchange a look. 

Steve is about to say something, asking how it went even though Billy is always vague about it, but the other keeps walking until he opens the passenger door and seat a moment after. The owner of the car observes him for a long moment, looking at Billy shutting his door close and leaning against it with his elbow. He doesn't look at the waiting boy, but closes his eyes like he's too tired to deal with anything going on, and Steve decides it's time to jump down the hood of the car and sees what it is about. 

Once inside, a sigh escapes his mouth, he turns his torso towards Billy and his hand lands gently on the boy's thigh. 

"Hey" he says, voice calm and soft, like he's talking to a child. His fingers caress the texture of Billy's jeans "Wanna tell me happened?" 

There's a long moment of silence inside the small space of the vehicle, which, Steve considers, it's colder than staying stupidly out of the car. His body shivers, but he doesn't really mind, trying to understand what went wrong. Except the whole reason why they have to go there, in the first place. 

Billy never talked exactly about what they -him or the doctors- say inside the lab, or what they do specifically, but, from his vague uncoordinated phrases and Max version about Will, Steve got that it's not exactly a regular therapy session. 

"I'm not sure I want to keep coming here. That's all" Billy says in the end, moving one of his hands like he wants to underline the concept. Frantically, he looks for his pack of cigarettes inside the pocket of his jacket and, with shaking fingers, he lights one up, after rolling down the window. "It's useless shit, at this point"

"I'm sure they would like to disagree" Steve mutters and when Billy doesn't even look at him, except for the stretching of a cig that is quietly declined, he squeezes his hand around his thigh and calls him back. "Hey, hey. Look at me" he says and it occurs a couple of seconds before Billy turns with his piercing blue eyes focused on him behind his long eyelashes. He doesn't seem really happy to follow someone else's orders, but he doesn't complain either. "Why are you saying this? Did something happened?" 

Billy's mouth opens and closes. Then, he opens it again, before letting a sigh go out of his lips, followed by a negative movement of his head. "It's been the same crap over the past two years, Harrington. I'm tired of this. You would be too" 

"You _died_ " Steve says suddenly harder than he wanted to result. When he swallows and pushes his locks back from his temples with the free hand, he's not really surprised to not see Billy flinching at the thought of death. He just keeps staring at the woods around the lab, standing right in front of them. He takes a drag, letting it go half out the open window and half inside the cab. "I mean, isn't that bad that they are checking your condition after you came through that hell. Will did it too"

"He stopped" Billy says slowly and with a low tone, after an instant. "Max told that he's not going anymore" 

Steve makes a face. "Jonathan says that Owens still calls Mrs. Bayes and asks if anything weird happened. But, anyway, you two have two very different stories. The monster in him left under his mom's eyes. The one that took you-" he stops, unsure about the topic and his approach to it. He doesn't want to say the wrong thing, but Billy isn't a kid anymore. "It was stronger and it almost killed you and, I don't know, man, I don't want to live that shit even again"

"But I'm fine now" Billy insists and he shifts a bit under Steve's touch, his hands still over the other's leg without any maliciousness in it. Just… Gently careful. "I _think_ I'm fine, okay? I mean, nothing happened in the past three years, except that I'm still a freak, so-"

Steve purses his lips, but understands it. He really does, because he gets things now that he didn't get before, he understands actions and thoughts that wouldn't ever cross the mind of his old self. So he can understand what Billy is going through, or at least try, and he realizes it must not be easy. So, he doesn't push further on insisting about going to the next appointment, if the boy doesn't want to. When he's about to ask how Billy is feeling and if he's in the mood for having lunch together, leaving this conversation behind for a while, at least, the boy stops him from his intentions by dropping his hand over Steve's. The driver is surprised, then even pleased by Billy's warmth, but tries to not show how that unusual behavior in the open of the daylight caught him off guard. 

"They all stand there, looking at me" Billy's fingers slides between Steve's and the latter stays still, scared that any sudden movement could stop the boy from talking, or touching him. "They start by checking my scars and my physical health, like the sign on my chest and stomach could disappear from a day to another. They won't" 

This makes Steve frowns, when he turns his hand in Billy's, so their palms are one against another. "What do they do then?" 

Billy looks up at him, face paler than it used to be and lips pursed in a tiny line, like the conversation isn't that much of a big deal, but just an annoying issue to take care of. The cigarette half finished between his fingers stretched out of the window and Steve knows it's a big deal for Billy, in the end. "They connect me to a machine and start asking questions. Like it's a quiz show"

Steve sighs and he doesn't have a right answer to that. He doesn't feel like telling Billy to keep going to the lab, once every month, if he doesn't feel like that anymore, nor he doesn't want to pretend it's not anyway reassuring knowing someone keeps an eye on his medical condition. He's not a big fan of doctor Owens, but surely is more competent than Steve will ever be. Billy seems fine, honestly, he's getting stronger again, even though he's not working out like he used to do, but it's still something. He seems less sick and more _alive,_ than when he came around town the first times after months, and Steve can tell that from the way he talks and acts. But he's not a doctor anyway and all he can do is hope that the boy would open up and he'd be ready to listen. Steve isn't sure it's helpful, but it's everything he can give to him. 

"Listen" he whispers seriously, as Billy smokes quietly and looks out of the window. When Steve's words fill the vehicle, he glances his way, giving him an unsure and maybe a bit skeptical look. "You don't have to decide now. You have another whole month, right? Think about it, take your time"

"What if, I'll decide I don't want to go?" 

"No one will drag you there" Steve assures, giving Billy's hand a squeeze. "And if they'll try, we'll think about something. But I highly doubt doctor Owens will force you to, you're fine and he knows that"

Billy face twists and his eyes drop for a split of seconds on the boys' liked hands. When Steve thinks he will slip away, or say something about it, he just takes another long drag and then throws his cigarette out. Ecologists will surely thank him later. "What if I'm not and they know that" 

Steve frowns, a flicker of panic in his chest. "What do you mean?" 

"What if _it_ is, just-" Billy shrugs, dismissively. But he's bluffing. "You know, it's sleeping" 

He doesn't need to say _the monster_ , but it's pretty obvious and Steve hates it. Hates this way they have to always watch their backs, like they are in constant danger for their lives: he likes the Steve he turned into and everything the hunting gave to him -friends, values, life lessons- but, sometimes, the carelessness of the old times seem like fresh air. 

"Do you think that if it was sleeping, they would be so easy about letting you walk around?" Steve asks, but it's purely rhetorical. "Hard to admit, but doctor Owens seems competent enough and Hopper trusted him. And I trusted the chief, so-" a pause, before caressing Billy's fingers with his own. "You're fine and healthy, there's _nothing_ sleeping inside you. They are just doing their paranoid job, even though it makes you feel uncomfortable" 

"I'm not _uncomfortable-_ " Billy starts, words spat between his teeth. But he doesn't have anything else to add and shuts his mouth with a mix of annoyance and resignation. 

"There's nothing wrong about it" Steve says. "You are human, that you like it or not, and you feel emotions. Deal with it"

A sigh. A frantic movement of Billy's now free hand. "Shit, I hope you're right, Harrington" a pause. "About not having that thing inside-" 

"I am" Steve says in a rush. When his company turns in the passenger seat, light blue eyes gleaming for a fraction of second, his stomach turns upside down, remembering Steve he's human as well. Emotions and all that shit. Before it's too late and Billy looks away, breaking eye contact, the driver's free hand takes the other boy by the collar of his shirt -once it would be almost completely unbuttoned- and presses their mouth together. 

The cold outside can't fight against the perpetual warmth that Billy's body seems to constantly emanate and Steve can't just help but pushes himself more against the other's lips. Eyes fluttering shut, Billy hand finds Steve's face and they make out like the teens they never had the chance to be. 

  


Robin's voice is excitingly familiar and hearing her talking about people Steve has no clue who they are is almost relaxing. She's narrating from about something like ten minutes, telling him names and events, while calling him from time to time to know if he's listening. 

Steve is laying on his bed, face to the ceiling and legs sprawled over the mattress. He nods, when she calls him, like she could see him, but then he remembers she's not there and says something like _Yeah, I'm listening_ , _you were talking about Mandy and_ … She always resumed her talk and he was genuinely happy to hear her voice. 

Distance isn't simple when he's working almost everyday and she has classes to attend and a life to live, so, now, they are calling each other after almost two weeks. And Steve missed her sarcastic tone, her deep but loud voice and her way to call him nicknames just for the sake of it. He, honestly, lost his concentration somewhere between Mandy throwing up in class and Ariela flirting with their English teacher and he has no clue how to link the two facts. He likes to hear those stories anyway, so he doesn't interrupt: maybe it's because he misses her, or perhaps because his social life is kind of dead since she left. 

"So I went to him and asked him if he had something against me, because he started to give on my nerves'' she's saying and Steve is almost sure she's talking about Pierce now from Creative Writing and who always stares at her, or in her _general_ _direction_ like Robin likes to say. Steve is almost sure he has a crush, borderline obsessive, but still a crush, on his girl friend, while she's convinced that Pierce is just jealous of her, because he is actually interested in Mandy, who likes to hang out with Robin more and who never seemed interested in him whenever he's around. Listening to her, Steve almost missed this old school drama too. "You know what he did?" 

Steve shrugs, still lying on his comfortable mattress, phone between his ear and his shoulder. "Asked you out, because he's in love with you or something like that?" 

"No, _dingus_ " Robin exhales and he can imagine the girl rolling her eyes in fake annoyance. "He stared at me, straight in my eyes, and then he left. Can you imagine how irritating this guy is?" 

"He's has a crush on you" Steve says flatly. "It's almost obsessive, so be careful" 

"He's nicer with Mandy" Robin snorts. "He likes her. I'm just in between, you know" 

Steve decides to not insist because he doesn't know Pierce or Mandy or anything that happens in Robin's life by first hand, so he doesn't feel like he's sure about anything. Actually, he's convinced it started even as a joke, the whole _Pierce has a crush on you_ , mostly to bug his friend, and that eventually it blurred into an almost habit, call after call. 

"Yeah, I know" Steve says in the end and he knows Robin is about to ask if he's thinking of Nancy and Jonathan. He refrains himself because, _yes_ , he's thinking exactly about them, but not completely. Billy's face appears on his mind and the words _I can't, I'm seeing someone tonight_ echoes constantly like a ring, reminding Steve he always ends being the third wheel, the friend. Sometimes, he would be nice to know he's something more than the one to run to when things get complicated, but it seems like there's a very specific path for him and it's irreversible. 

Steve isn't mad at Billy, nor he wasn't when the boy dropped the news that same afternoon out of the general store, with low eyes. He also added that _she came by yesterday and she seems okay_ , _so…_ and it was something that Steve didn't have an answer for. After a moment of silence, Billy specified he was talking about the girl who Steve saw a couple of days before, almost a week, and whose name is apparently Jordan. The other boy, confused and caught off guard, almost snorted and told him that he could have guessed on his own. 

Now, lying in his bed, Steve can't really think about a better answer of an awkward but polite _that's cool, man_ that screamed how uncomfortable Steve felt, but how supportive he was trying to be. Billy knew he didn't really think it was actually cool, Steve is sure of that, but he eventually nodded, knowing it was better to not say anything else before anyone could drop the wrong thing like a bomb. 

"So" Robin says, calling Steve back to reality from his unhealthy coping mechanism, that keeps telling him he's not jealous. He's sure about it anyway, but tries to convince him otherwise. "How things are going in the old troubled Hawkins for Steve Harrington?"

He blinks, shrugging right after. "The same old shit, I guess" 

"Work, children and rough sex then" Robin says and she laughs quietly at her own words, but Steve stays silent. He should say that sex with Billy isn't always rough: maybe sometimes, but mostly Billy is unbelievable kind and gentle, even patient, and Steve always had confused feelings about the meaning of it. A couple of times, at the beginning at least, he asked himself if it was what Billy really was made of -a more careful and softer boy who pretends to be something else for the sake of his imagine- but then he understood that Billy could have swinging moods based on so many things, events and people happening on his path, that Steve had difficulty following every change of heart. But he eventually got used to it and it didn't occur to Steve much time to understand that Billy's gentle side comes out because of a necessity, one that sees him giving attention to receive the same treatment. When he's rough - _more impetuous_ , Steve would like to say- he knows it's because something happened and he needs to distract himself, making sure to feel there's still someone for him. When he's more delicate it's because it's a good day and there are things to be enjoyed and he wants to appreciate every side of their relationship, in and out the sheets. Steve, honestly, takes everything that he can take, feeling hurt every time he ends being disappointed, mostly from his own feelings. Like that night. 

"Something like that" Steve says in the end to Robin, who's the only one knowing about Billy. That's exactly when he notices how down his tone seems and tries to make up for it, so Robin won't ask. He clears his throat. "I saw Dustin yesterday, he came with the other losers at the store and told to say hi to you, if I heard from you. He always asks me to"

"I miss that kid" Robin says, with a voice that sounds cracked from the affection and a smile on her lips that Steve can easily picture in his mind. 

"He's tall like me, now" he says, laughing a little, like it is much fun. It's actually almost depressing knowing their mutual friends are mostly teenagers, befriended when they were just kids. "They all are so grew up, honestly"

"I know, I saw them for the holidays" Robin remembers him she's been in town a couple of weeks prior. 

"Yeah, but it seems like they can't stop from growing" Steve keeps saying. "I mean, Mike drives and Lucas is playing on the basketball team. Max talks to me like we're the same age" 

"You sound like a depressed mom" 

Steve grunts, but hides a smile. "And you know that feeling about a mother feeling useless, when their kids are all out of the house?" 

"Christ" Robin exhales, but she's enjoying it. "Depressed and depressing" 

Steve laughs genuinely and shakes his head, before taking one and then two breathes, eyes glued to the ceiling and letting a short silence fill the conversation. At least until Robin asks how he's doing and her soft tone leads Steve to believe that, maybe, she already saw through his words. 

He rubs his eyes and makes a face. "I'm fine" 

"Are you?" the girl asks and there's as much concern as affection. "You seems a bit _off_ " 

"Just… Thoughts, you know" Steve admits and maybe he's letting a lot of half truth out of his mouth and chest. Even what he said about being useless for the kids isn't totally a lie and Billy's event just adds to a situation Steve is stuck in: he maybe loves too much and everything he does, for a reason or another, backfires him. 

"About?"

"The usual" he says quietly, perhaps too much. "Life choices. Money. Life arrangement. Future. All that shit" 

Robin sighs. "You know you can talk to me" 

"I know" 

"And that I know there's more" Robin adds, her tone not completely sure about telling him that. He swallows, slowly and hoping to not make the girl hear that. "Something happened. Want to talk about it?" 

Steve is quiet for a moment, maybe longer than he should be, and he hears her breathing on the other side of the phone waiting for him. He makes a face, opens his free hand and forgets that she can't see him, his afflicted expressions and his mood. "I don't know" 

Robin sighs. "There's no _I don't know_ , dingus. Yes or not. I'm gonna stick with no too"

"I'm not worried about it" Steve shrugs, frankly. "It's just that I don't know what's going on, so I don't know if I can talk about something that it's just very confusing" 

"Let me help you" Robin proposes and she stops, probably waiting for the other to interrupt her with a positive or negative response. When Steve's voice doesn't say a word, she swallows and takes a breath. "You got attached to your sex buddy, as I already predicted and warned you about, and you're not doing good. Yes or no?"

"He's on a date" it's all Steve can say and it's a confirmation for Robin, but the proof that things are even worse than she probably expected. A moment of silence comes after. 

"This isn't a yes, or a no" she says, but from her tone she seems confused as well, so Steve feels a bit less lonely. Almost understood. "I thought he didn't look for a date" 

"I thought that too" the boy sighs. "We were wrong" 

"How do you know" Robin asks, but it doesn't come out really like a question. "That he's on a date" 

"He told me" 

"What exactly?" 

"Something like _I'm gonna see someone tonight_ " Steve blurts out and he closes his eyes, preferring the dark void of his mind, than the ceiling of his room. "Someone who's a random girl he met at work. I saw her and she's-" 

"We don't care how she is" Robin interrupts and her voice tells Steve she won't drop the topic easily. 

"We do" the boy whispers. " _I_ do. She was very nice, I mean, good looking at least and she's _a girl_ "

"He doesn't mind about that" Robin says to Steve, but none of them is confident about the statement. 

"Until nobody knows" he underlines and his throat is a bit dry. "And I get it, okay? I don't want people to know either. This place is a bigot shit hole and I contributed to that title in the past. And I'm not happy about it. But the thing is, that he must start again, eventually. You know, hanging with people like him, hooking up with girl and dating on the public eye" 

"Listen to me, lover boy" Robin interrupts _again_ and she's so serious that Steve's eyes snap open and he doesn't even consider telling her to stop interrupting his rambling. He waits for her next word in silence. "First of all, I can't remember him _dating_ anyone since he arrived in Hawkins. I always saw everyone, even though you all never minded me, and he never did such thing" a pause and Steve would feel guilty, even after all this time, at the memory of the Starcourt confessions they made lying on the bathroom floor, about how he never remembered her from school and everything that came after. "Second, _hanging with people like him_?" 

"Yeah" Steve dares to say, but it's weak. "Hot people, kind of annoying, exactly the type I was and left behind to be a more decent human being" 

"Don't you think he's a decent human being now?" 

"Now?" Steve asks and it's rhetorical. "Yeah, he is. Definitely better than school. Tomorrow? I'm not so sure, when he'll start getting all confident again and he'll know he could be back on the scene because people still like him" 

"He's not gonna do that, Steve Harrington" Robin says and the full name tells the boy she's about to scold him. It seems like hearing his mom. "Did you think this was all temporary? That he hung out with you just because you were the only loser around he could have hung with while recovering?" a sigh. "I'm not gonna tell you he likes you _that_ way. I don't know that, it's Hawkins and it sucks enough to be yourself in Hawkins, I wouldn't be surprised if he would be scared to even tell you how he really feels about you. But I'm positive he likes you enough as a person and a friend to choose you over any other Tommy or Carol coming around these days. And, yeah, that's maybe because you destroyed his car and he smashed a dish on your empty head, or because he also died and came back from the land of the dead under our eyes. But those are the same reasons why he's gonna stay. He's smart under all that cologne and constantly tan skin. It's been his turn to left the hot and annoying person he was and he's not that dense to go back there"

A moment of stall, as Steve processes and Robin waits patiently. Then, all suddenly, the boy sits on the mattress. 

"What about the girl and the date?" he asks and it's so quick that the other on the phone almost misses a couple of words. 

"I don't know, Steve. I don't know what he's thinking" Robin admits. "I just don't think he would jump into the dating thing so quickly and so suddenly. Maybe he's just _trying_ things out. And I know it hurt you-" 

Steve would like to say he's not hurt, that he's just confused, but instead he asks " _But_? I feel like there's a _but_ ".

"But you're casual" Robin concludes, resentful. "You're friends who do casual sex. He won't push you away as friends, at least, because there's just _too much_ trauma between the two of you. But you have to talk to him, if being just friends isn't what you want"

"I don't know what I want. I-" Steve stops, breathes and swallows, eyes unfocused, mind running fast. He feels a tear running down his cheek and when it was the last time he cried? It's usually Billy places to let everything out, as he tries to be the steady one. Someone must be. Another breath. "I'm just sick of being everyone's second choice" 

Robin stays quiet for a second and all those pauses start to get annoying, too heavy. When she stays silent another moment, Steve talks again. 

"I mean, I've always been, even with him" he exhales, body trembling. "At the beginning, it seems like for once someone chose me over everything else, but I was just being naive. He has plans, he has California waiting for him and he's waiting to go there and start over again. Me? I have no plans and I'm no one's future. I've been his second choice all along. I just accepted it when he told me he had a date tonight. I'm second after Cali and I'm second to some random girl, who can make him feel less weird than me. Less different. We may be friends now, but I doubt he wants more from it and that, whatever it is, isn't gonna last any longer. He will move away. That's not what he planned. I'm on the list, but not on top and not once he will leave"

"You don't know that" Robin says and she seems to not have more words to speak. "You don't know. Talk to him. Take the next step and risk"

"I don't want to be rejected from him too" 

"You can't keep wandering, if he has more than friendly feelings for you and he's being quiet about them. It's comprehensible in Hawkins, Steve" she insists. "And, yeah, rejection it's an option, but it's not the only one. And you healed once, you will heal another time, nothing lasts forever" a pause and a sigh. "And, Steve?" 

"Mmh?" 

"You're my first choice. As friends. I know it's not much and that you look for something more, but I would pick you over any other person I'm befriending here. And it's not like I forgot your clumsiness moving"

Steve cracks a smile. 

"I would pick you too" he says and finally he dries his cheeks with the back of his hand. He's shaking a bit, breathes heavy. "Can we… Can we talk about anything else?" 

"Yeah, definitely" she exclaims and then she's throwing herself in another of her stories and Steve is glad, even though she's living her life as best as she can and he's being miserable. 

They stay at the phone for another ten or fifteen minutes and they hang up just when Steve hears the main door of the house open and close downstairs. A moment later her mom is announcing they are back from a dinner since his parents are in town for a couple of days. The boy says goodbye to Robin and she answers that she misses him, while he reciprocates the affection and hangs up. He doesn't want his parents to hear his phone conversations, nor he wants to bring Robin up considering the gleaming of his dad's eyes whenever he mentions the girl's name. 

To Mr. Harrington, considering the lack of social and love life of his son and the disappointment in his work and scholastic choices, Robin would be a nice choice for Steve to settle down. At least, after losing Nancy into the options list. He knows what all this interest means: his dad thinks that, if he starts a serious relationship, he will have to reconsider all his lifestyle choices and maybe accept the place he's been long designed into the family business. 

Except that Steve isn't in love with Robin and probably he thought he had a crush on her, back to the old days of their job at the Scoop Ahoy, just because he felt like he needed someone next to him under all the Russian pressure and monster hunting. Also, Steve isn't Robin's type at all and they work perfectly fine like that. 

  


Steve is walking around tirelessly, between a shelf and another, placing the VHS that have been brought back that day and that nobody of the other employees took care of. He's the oldest at the Video Family now and he always insists on doing everything he must do during his shifts, so no one can complain and maybe also to be praised for his good work in front of the colleagues. After Robin, he didn't befriend anyone and there were a lot of changes inside the staff, faces that went and never came back and others that have been fired during the years. Paradoxically, Steve, who's got the job just thanks to Robin, has stayed and he's not that stupid to let the job go, or quit, so he's super careful to not doing anything wrong and looking like he knows what he's doing. 

Now, it's a late night shift during a week day and he hates it, because he's always bored and tired by reflex when there aren't more than two costumes in a range of a seven hours shift. Weekends are much more dynamic, Steve likes them better, but he takes what he can and doesn't complain. 

That night, however, it's almost over and the clock says it's almost midnight, which means he can start finishing what he's doing and packing his things: in front of him a whole morning of sleeping, without his parents at home, which means nobody would wake him up, but also that nobody will make him breakfast, or lunch. 

He sighs, the last VHS on the shelf and his shoulders that are bending like he's constantly tired and not just like he lived with a bad posture all his life, which is also true. Maybe, it's a bit of both. 

As he walks towards the cash register, the lights turn partially off and, every time it happens during the night shift, a shiver goes down Steve's spine, bringing bad memories back. He always takes a moment to elaborate that it's just time to close the shop and that whatever colleague is turning the lights off isn't a monster hiding in the corner of the nearest shelf. It's been years of calm in Hawkins, but, apparently, some traumas are meant to stay and Steve isn't immune to nightmares and bad memories during both the daylight and the night. 

"I'm done" Jillian says, appearing from the back and smiling at him. The boy's heart slows down a bit, looking at the girl who's a new member of the Family Video staff and who's the one that usually covers the night shifts with Steve from a couple of months now. Lately, there have been a lot of minors working during the days -mostly high school students needing a part time job for the money or to add experiences on their curriculum- and the work policy doesn't accept underages working at night. So, usually Steve and Jillian team up to cover partly the late shifts of the week. Sometimes, however, one of them pairs up with Lewis, a big guy with funny mustaches. "You ready?" 

He takes a moment to recover from the quick surprise of her appearance and blinks, dressed in his civil clothes and a stupid green gilet, before nodding. His hair falls around his face, so he quickly pushes them on a side. 

"Yeah, sure" he says, walking past her and going behind the counter to check everything is alright, everything is in his place and nothing out of order. He doesn't want any complaint from the employers of the morning shift, so he double checks, as Jillian patiently waits. She always waits. 

A lot of time Steve told her to leave a couple of minutes prior, swearing to her he could make sure everything was alright for the closing for both of them, seeing how tired she looked after a day of school -she's eighteen and at her last year at Hawkins High- and seven hours of a boring night shift at Video Family. She always minimized her tiredness and he stopped insisting, knowing it must not be easy balancing everything, but thinking she's doing a pretty good job anyway. 

When the last light is turned off and they close the door, she squeezes herself in her heavy coat and her long curly hair bounces on her shoulders. Steve turns to smile at her dark face enlightened by the moon and the artificial lights around the store, but her brown eyes are looking somewhere else behind Steve.

"Your weird friend is here" she says not really showing any emotion as she says so, but nodding in the general direction of the boy's back. His eyebrows lift up, surprised even before he can turn, guessing who his _weird friend_ could be. He doesn't have many friends and someone like every single one of the kids can be described as _weird_ , but he knows they won't show up at the night shift and he doesn't have many others that appear out of his work place that late, waiting for him. When Steve turns, Billy is looking at him, while leaning on the other's parked car. 

"Yeah" Steve mutters, throat dry and hands that start sweating around the key of the shop. He puts them back in the pockets of his jacket. "He's waiting for me. I-I have to give him a ride home" 

It's a lie and Jillian must have sensed it, because she purses her lips and makes a face that Steve has no idea how to interpret. He stays silent, still surprised, a bit confused, as she nods his way and says goodbye, before stepping back in front of the main door of the shop and walking away. She parked a couple of cars away and she quickly inserts the reverse gear, once inside the vehicle, and leaves as fast as she can. Steve doesn't blame her: he would do the exact same thing, if it wouldn't for the figure leaning against the hood of his car. Instead, he takes a breath facing the quiet street and then he turns, walking towards a smoking Billy. 

Steve reaches him slowly, like he's not tired and needy of a bed, but more like he has the whole time of the world, while his mind is trying to think how their conversation could start and grow, improvising a couple of weak lies and answers. They haven't seen each other in two days, basically since Billy went out with that girl and Steve cried quietly at the phone. Now, it seems like every intention of Steve to avoid the other a little bit longer is burning out at his every step. 

Once in front of Billy, he closes in his shoulders, with his hands inside the pockets of his jacket. The keys inside are warm from his grip. 

"Hey" Steve greets, casually. Playing it cool. 

"Hey" Billy says after a drag from his cigarette and his tone is flat, almost he doesn't care about anything. "Haven't seen you around"

Steve shrugs nonchalantly. "I've been busy" 

The other takes another drag and waits, eyeing the Video Family employer like he's studying him. Quietly, like a lot of things Billy does, but his stare is heavy. Then he let out a cloud of smoke. "So you're not avoiding me" 

It doesn't sound like a question, not even a rhetorical one, but the challenge in Billy's tone is clear and transparent, the accusation is badly hidden. Steve expected something like this out of Billy's mouth: he may be a lot more introverted and silent than he used to be, but when he has something to say -something that he _wants_ to say- his tongue is still damn sharp and Steve learned to manage it. Usually isn't just something so explicitly dangerous about him. He doesn't want to talk to Billy about what he talked to Robin about, he's not sure the other is ready to face such conversations, or perhaps Steve is scared of what could come after between the pair. So he keeps playing cool, the cold of the night all over his bones, and leans on the hood next to Billy. The arcade nearby is about to close as well, but it's still open, so there are still a couple of people around, and Steve keeps a few safety inches between Billy and himself. 

"I'm not avoiding you" he states, in the end. "Why should I do that?" 

Billy shrugs and, after a moment, he stretches his arms and offers Steve a drag from his cigarette. The other knows it's a test, from the way and how Billy glances to his company's every action: Steve is not an habitual smoker, mostly he does it just when he's nervous, or extremely bored, which is not the case, and Billy knows that. He's always distractly polite, he _always_ offers Steve's smoke, but usually he does it knowing the other will reject the cigarette anyway and he's ready for it. Now, there's too much attention and Steve shakes his head, like he didn't notice. Billy brings it to his mouth again and shakes his free hand in the air. 

"I don't know. A feeling" he says practically, like they are talking about the weather. 

"Wrong feeling, then" Steve mutters and he's being a monumental liar, because avoiding Billy was exactly his plan all along. But he keeps pretending. "I've been busy at work, my parents have been home. You know, the usual" 

Billy nods, but does it slowly. Then he smokes again and, silently, he looks at the boy that walks a couple of cars away and that just came out from the arcade. Then he glances at the dark sky above their head and between a drag and a moment of silence, he talks again. 

"It didn't go well" he glances back at Steve, whose eyebrows are furrowed in confusion, but Billy looks away right after and shrugs. "The thing with that girl" 

Steve didn't actually expect the boy to bring the date up, not really. He expected him to be quiet about it, maybe dropping a couple of hints to hit on Steve and see his reaction, but not something so explicit. Nor something that negative. Steve didn't contemplate the possibility that the date could have gone bad, too busy crying over the fact that it _happened,_ in the first place. 

He swallows. "It's called _date_ , not _thing_ " 

Billy snorts. "It wasn't a date"

"When you go out with someone it's a date, you know" Steve bugs and, honestly, he's a bit relieved. And he should feel guilty about it, but he can't lie to himself about the fact he's lighter after the news. 

"For the same reason, we should call dates every time we go out. Like when we go to the diner" Billy says, flatly, still smoking. "We don't call them that" 

Steve lifts an eyebrow and looks at the boy's profile, the only things the other is giving him at the moment. "Do you want to call them that?" 

Billy flinched, but when he turns his face is contracted in an expression that is a mix about surprise and confusion. "We shouldn't" 

And, Steve notices, he didn't say _no_ , but he also feels that all that vagueness, never clean answers, means that maybe they aren't ready for any serious conversation about what he would like to have or about their future, wherever it is, whatever it's made of. It's a big unknown territory where every sign says _don't enter_ and Steve is familiar with the unknown, it always ends badly. 

He sighs and shrugs. "Okay. The _not-date_ , seemed like you wanted to talk about it"

"Why do you make it sound like it bothers you?" Billy asks and, here it goes again, the accusatory tone.

"It doesn't _bother_ me" Steve answers and maybe he's been too fast, too sudden, almost like he's confessing a sin, he actually did. He tries to relax, lowering his tone. "It doesn't" 

"Okay" Billy exhales. "I thought I should have told you, that's all. Let you know" 

Those words punch Steve too hard to stay silent and quiet, this time, so he pushes himself away from the car. He faces Billy. "Why that?" 

The other shrugs and purses his fleshy lips. "I don't know. Another feeling?" 

"Another wrong one" Steve assures and Billy shrugs. 

"Yeah. Probably" 

They stay silent for a couple of instants, Steve's eyes look at Billy and Billy's look away, while his mouth finishes his half ended cigarette. The time passes quietly and seems like suddenly they don't have words to say anymore. Steve comes back leaning over the hood of the car and waits, for what he doesn't know, but his chest hurts so badly at the thought of his conversation with Robin that he feels like he's constantly on edge of throwing everything out. He always refrains the need to tell how he feels about his life these days and in the eventual future, how he feels about Billy _and_ Billy going out with people, even though he's conscious that's not the deal. They didn't plan to catch feelings, they assured the other it wasn't what they were looking for. He's quietly crawling into his own thoughts and feelings, fighting the urge to scream or cry -he's not sure- until Billy throws what remains of his cigarette on the sidewalk and takes a deep breath. It's like a shake going down Steve's spine, or a slap that calls him back to their reality: silent feelings, loud lies. 

"What if-" Steve starts and Billy finches, before stopping whatever he is about to do. He waits for the other to continue, telling him that he's listening just by a long cautions glance. "What if, hypothetically, it would have bothered me" Steve's stare, now, doesn't move from the wall in front of them, too scared. "You know, your _not-date_ " 

Billy stays quiet. At the beginning it's exactly what Steve expected, a long meditative pause before letting out something, _anything._ But then it starts to get too long, too difficult to bear and, moment after moment, Steve feels like drowning. When he thinks the other won't say anything, shame burning his cheeks even in the cold night, Billy exhales. 

"I would tell you it wasn't on the plan" he says in the end, freezing the boy next to him with a couple of words. "That we're not exclusive" a pause in which Steve isn't keeling on interrupting. "Are we still speaking hypothetically?"

Steve sighs, not knowing if he's shaking because of the temperature of that night, or because of what it's happening. "I guess I should tell you that we are _speaking hypothetically_ , but I'm not sure" 

Billy looks down. To his hands. His ring on his finger. To his fingertips playing with the textures of his skin. He blinks a couple of times and Steve can't tell what he's feeling from his face. "It can be only hypothetical. You know that" 

Steve purses his lips, feeling like Billy just punched him and not really feeling like he agrees with his statement. He doesn't like it, so he stays quiet and seems like silence is always a nice place to hide: it can say a lot of things, but anything is better than a rejection said out loud. 

"I'm not in love with you, or anything" Steve mutters, maybe too bitter and resentful to not sound like he's confessing another sin. Again. "Don't even think that" 

Billy cracks a light laugh, but it's clear that he's nervous. He stops quickly, killing it on his lips. "So what's exactly the thing? You're not in love with me, but you want it to be exclusive"

"I never said that" Steve spats and stands from the hood again, placing himself in front of a frozen Billy, made of tight jaw, cold hands and furrowed eyebrows. He glances up, when Steve faces him a couple of feet away. " _You_ said it. I never mentioned exclusiveness. I just made a comment about your date. It doesn't mean I want anything exclusive from you"

Before Steve can process that being bothered by the partner's other dates means looking for something more than fooling, that it implicitly means that he would like some exclusiveness, in the end, Billy talks again. 

"It wasn't a date" 

"It was" Steve says then and he moves frantically his hands. "Why can't you just admit it? You went out with a girl you were attracted to, that's what people call a date. Deal with it" 

"I wasn't attracted to her" Billy says and makes a face. "She was attractive, I would be stupid to say she wasn't. But her being attractive, doesn't mean I was attracted to her" 

"Why did you go out with her, then" Steve exclaims, maybe a bit too forcefully, and he thinks that Billy will leave him there, pushing him away in every way he could. Instead, his eyes find Steve's and they stay quiet, drowning in words they won't say out loud. Then, Billy sighs and looks down. _Again_.

"I-" he starts and he's uncomfortable, almost without anything to say and he seems _hurt_. So hurt that Steve asks himself when the places switched and what he did to turn into the mean one. Not that Billy can be called mean in their discussion, but Steve tends to see himself as the victim of their feelings at the moment. "You have no idea-" 

"Talk to me then" the other says and sounds like a beg. He steps closer, but not too much.

"I talk to you" Billy remembers quietly. "You can't say that, _really_ " 

"Not now" Steve says. "You always build walls when it comes to your feelings. And you're doing it right now. You're okay to talk to me, when you can be sure you can tell things without being too personal"

"You know things nobody knows" Billy spats and, this time, he's the one pulling away from the car. He steps into Steve's space and, because there are still a couple of feet and because he doesn't want to look uncomfortable, Steve stays still. "You know things I never told anyone"

"Maybe" Steve's voice is raspy, but he doesn't let anything else come out from it, or from his actions. He stays frozen. "But there are plenty others you don't tell me and I'm not sure I can just keep ignoring them when they involve me"

Billy sighs, but it's more like he can't come up with another answer. It takes him a whole moment, before blinking and saying anything with the lower tone Steve ever heard. "What do you want to know" 

There's something about Billy's question, that says he's close to surrendering. Steve knows he's not, but it seems like maybe there are compromises that can be done to repair what's breaking. Or, at least, _try to_. His shoulders are tense and his eyes are moving frantically around Steve, but never on him, and the other takes his time to think. He could ask about why he went out with that girl, or asks if he counts on Steve to be just temporary, not only until he moves away, but until he can find someone better even in Hawkins. Or others, at least, ten questions come up in his mind, but when he takes a breath, he makes one that will give plenty of answers for him to understand where they are. Or he hopes so. 

"How you feel about me" it's clear, he thinks, and Billy won't escape that easily from replying. At the thought, Steve feels a bit guilty, but he's involved and maybe it's his right to know where he can lay his hopes on. Or, in _who_. Like Robin said, rejection is an option and, if it will be the case, he will eventually go over it. He already did in the past and at the time he thought that Nancy Wheeler may be his long term future. With Billy and everything that his arrival meant, he would be okay even with a short one. "About us"

The boy facing Steve is now blinking through his long eyelash, but the piercing blue of his eyes is far away on that dark night. The Video Family employer waits, frozen like any moment could send the other running. Instead, Billy swallows and with a long and deep breath he comes back leaning against the car. He pulls out another cigarette from the pack inside his pocket and lights it up, without looking at the other figure. 

Steve crosses his arms in front of his chest and Billy shakes his head. 

"Where are that all coming from?" the latter asks, taking a drag. He makes a face. 

"Answer" Steve replies. "If you don't want to, just tell me that. Stop being vague about everything" 

Billy's eyebrow lifts. "I thought we were clear about what we were" 

"We talked about it once. Maybe twice. And it was longer than a year ago" the other explains flatly. "Things change in a year and a half" Billy opens his mouth and Steve doesn't like his face, knowing he's about to get on a defensive and do it fiercely. He interrupts any kind of protest. "I can't pretend I'm okay with rules that I'm not comfortable with anymore. Maybe it really bothers me that you go out with other people, when it's been us since you're back. It's probably a problem of mine, but if you don't tell me how you feel about what we have at the moment, not about _how it started_ , I can't try to fix whatever is wrong with me. I can't move on, or decide how to act around you, or if I can deal with being just friends, if you don't feel… If it doesn't bother you that I could go out with someone else" 

"You have nothing to _fix_ " Billy exhales, shaking his head. 

" _But_ -" Steve starts. "I've already heard this. There's always a _but_ " 

"But things should stay like they are" Billy whispers. He takes a drag. "You know that" 

"You always say _should_. That's what I don't like" the other says and his eyes start burning, so he blinks hoping he won't start crying there, in front of Billy. "You don't let yourself go. There are always things you should do and you shouldn't, that's not what you want or who you-" 

"I'm trying to survive this place"

"Do you think you're the only one?" Steve looks down, disbelief in his voice. "Do you think I like this town? That I don't want to go away? I want to. But I'm not trying to sabotage myself in the meantime. Don't you want to be… _Happy_?" 

Billy contemplates the boy in front of him. They talked for years about their past, about the displayed scars of their bodies and the ones that are well hidden. But something Steve is right is that Billy never talked about how he felt. If he was happy, if he was sad, if he wanted to cry, but couldn't: the other wandered in the dark, guessing by his mood, actions, expressions on his face. Steve always has more capacity to be emotional, but don't let it get the best of him. Billy? Billy is a mess. How many times he's been pushed and insulted by his dad and all he did was stand there with tears rolling down his cheeks, because he couldn't stop them, or _him_. Billy seems cold hearted, but he's just a roll coast of never spoken emotions that overcome him from inside and Steve learned to manage them as best as he could. Now, he's not sure he wants to keep guessing how the other feels about him. He may not have been the clearest about his previous speech, he may haven't talked his heart out completely to Billy about what he really wants from him, but he thinks the other is smart enough to put the pieces together. Once, he wants to benefit from vagueness. 

"My happiness depends on my surviving" Billy exhales in the end and he just shrugs. Steve feels hurt, in pain, punched in the stomach. "I can't let things slip away. I have plans, I have California and… I can't lose them. It's no strings attached, Steve" 

The name rings like a bell. A sense of nostalgia hits the other boy, shaking him, and then a nausea inside he doesn't want to let out. He thinks at the couple of times Billy uses his first name -just that, without his surname after, or some mocking nicknames- and he probably could count them on the fingers of his hands. A shiver goes down his spine, because it must be serious. And it's exactly the way Steve wants Billy to talk about this topic, not something that can be joked about. 

"Okay" Steve says in the end. And what else should he tell the other? A lot of answers come up in his mind, but they all make him sound like he's being a spoiled kid that just lost his shining toy. "Okay"

"Steve-" Billy repeats, low and slow. Like a secret. 

The Video Family employer looks quickly at Billy's eyes, then can't bear their heaviness and moves his own on something less dangerous. He swallows. "Stop repeating it" 

"It's your name, isn't?" and before Steve can reply anything back, Billy throws his cigarette on the sidewalk again and stands from the hood of the car. _Again_. He looks around and, once assured there's anyone and it's dark enough, he steps close to Steve. Not too close, but enough to talk quietly. "Hey. Listen, I… Even if I would like to give what you're asking me, it's… It's complicated. This place will turn us in pieces and then, isn't what we are already doing? We may not be together, but in some ways we are always together" 

"That's how you feel about me, then?" Steve blurts out, not really looking at Billy. "We could be something -feelings are there- but it's just… _Complicated_? So it's better tell me _no strings attached, Steve_?" 

Billy takes a moment to answer, eyes down. He eventually nods. "Maybe. I don't know" 

"Maybe or you don't know?" 

"Both, okay?" the other says and his voice is a tone higher. "Maybe there are feelings, but it's not like I have any remote idea how to manage them and this place, my dad and... It's not easy. Okay? It gives me headaches and there's the whole _I almost died thing_ that makes me think before throwing myself into something so dangerous like a relationship with a guy, you know, in this town. I can't risk anyone to find out"

Steve is confused, because he feels like it's not a complete rejection: in some way, Billy is saying he feels something for him and that's… That's like a tornado is happening in his stomach. But then, there's always that inevitable _but_ that keeps taunting him, night and day, in his every conversation. It's almost like Steve's life moves after any _but_ on his path. It's not a rejection… But it kinda is and, maybe, it hurts even more. 

"So, shagging was a risk you could take" he starts, throat dry. "But something more is too much to even try? How exactly is the risk to someone finding out different?" 

"What do you think" Billy starts asking, but isn't really a question. "That we can hold hands and shit like that? Yeah, if we were in another place, in another time and we… If we weren't two guys. But we're stuck here and we are two guys and I-" 

"You'll leave" Steve mutters. "You have Cali waiting for you and everything that comes with it. Freedom. Girls to date. Your old life how you left it. I'm just… A what? A temporary hobby to fill your time with? Maybe growing feelings that you'll forget quickly once out of here? Steve Harrington you tormented in high school is around and he's attracted to you, so he's an easy escape until it's necessary? Nothing more?"

"That's not what I said" Billy defends himself, a hard stare on his face. "I never mention you being _a hobby_ or _temporary._ That's bullshit"

"It's not _bullshit_ " Steve says, ignoring the other's last words that give him a sense of dejavu. He can't really forget Nancy breaking his heart, because he was both in love with her and because it was the first time he wasn't the one breaking someone else's heart. "Whether you like it or not, those are my feelings. I'm sick of people thinking I'm bullshit"

"Don't even try to bring _that_ up-" 

"What?" Steve asks in a rush, eyebrows furrowed and heart pounding in his chest like a drum. "That everybody's in my life always thinks I'm never good enough? That I have been second in everything I've done? School grades, love, basketball, friendships. I wasn't even able to be the dickhead that kept his dumb title as King in high school. Depressing. And I'm aware I'm second in many other things" he pushes his index in Billy's covered chest. "I just told you I may feel something for you and I didn't even be rejected. Then again, I'm after many others things, people's, whatever. This town. Your dad. California"

"Steve-" 

"Stop saying it" a deep breath. "I'm not asking you to stay for me, I would _never_. I'm just telling you I'm somewhere where I have to make decisions for my life and stop wandering about my future, who will be part of it and who won't. Frankly? I thought - _hoped_ \- you could have stayed for the short run until your departure"

Billy swallows, eyes glancing at his feet. "What after?"

Steve shrugs, feeling like his interrupted and agitated monologue has calmed him a bit. Like he stopped carrying a burden bigger than him and definitely heavier. "I don't know. There's still half a year until Max's graduation, a lot of things can change in this amount of time. But, at least, watching back, it wouldn't have been like I wasted my time wandering around, guessing if the person I grew feelings for could have felt at the same way"

"I may feel-" 

"But there's a _but_ " Steve nods and with that he walks past Billy's body. He turns, forcing the other to do the same and face the parking lot. "I respect that. Don't ever think I want to force things out of you. That's fine. I mean, it's _not fine_ , it hurts a bit, but I can work with managing it, if you want to be still friends in the meantime. During what rests of your life in Hawkins, until, you know, you'll move to California. I'll be okay with being friends. But I can't just… We can't do _those things_ , you know, being more than friends. Sleep together. I want to respect your decision and myself as well, I don't want to step over my feelings just because I like staying with someone"

Billy doesn't answer and he looks like he's in trance. The other asks himself if he's okay, if he's breathing, before hearing the boy sighing and seeing his chest moving under his shirt and jacket. Steve nods slowly and reaches his car, glancing another last time to the figure standing in front of Video Family, shoulders bending down and hair falling around his face. 

"Think about being friends" Steve says and Billy looks up from his trance. "That's what I can offer, if my feelings are too much for you. I'll do my best to make things normal, you know" a pause and no intention from the other to answer. He just stays frozen. Steve is the one sighing now. "Good night, Billy" 

There's a sense of guilt in Steve's chest as his fingers find the keys of the car in his pocket and the handler of the driver door with his free one. In any other circumstance, he would ask Billy or any other person if they wanted a ride home, especially in the night, but this time he looks at his company and knows it's better to not. With his stomach knotted, Steve notices Billy's face starting to contract and his eyes already looking away, so he sits in his car and starts the engine. 

He's so fast exiting from the parking lot that, when the sense of guilt amplifies and he tells himself he should have offered the other a ride, he's already driving away. He cut the air with his luxurious car and it's a terrible night for trying to sleep. He passes out just in the morning, drugged by the exhausting time spent thinking and overthinking. 

  


There's something disturbing familiar with the kids going at the shop, spending hours there and bothering Steve with their chats. 

They don't really _bother_ him, actually. Mostly, he tells them that to make sure they don't know he actually likes to have them there, because it's simple. Robin loved them too and she was quiet about it as well, calling them all nicknames instead. Keith, on the other hand, hated seeing the kids wasting time at the Family Video and making sounds, talking, being loud and disturbing the other clients. The arcade was a thing, he said, everyone does make loud noises at the arcade, but at the shop everything should be calmer, quieter. Keith complained, but Keith wasn't more than an employer and Steve only asked the kids to be more quiet and let him keep the job, before his colleague could complain with their boss. In the end, it was easier for Keith to stop working at the video shop, than the kids to actually stop being… Their loud selves. 

That's why, on a sunny but cold morning, Steve isn't surprised to see Max walking through the doors of the shop, pushing them with her whole body, with all the nonchalance in the world. He is not surprised _at first_ , because then he remembers she should be at school, behind a desk, probably distracting herself with those nerd boys that are their common friends. As he thinks so, he frowns behind the counter, bored because no customer passed by in the last two hours and his colleague had to leave him early because of an urgency. He's been mostly alone and Max is fresh air. A confusing presence, but fresh air for his lungs.

"Shouldn't you be at school?" he asks as a greeting, looking at her reaching the counter and comfortably sitting on it with a little jump. At this point, Steve doesn't even tell her -and the others- to stop acting like she -them- owns the place. He just glances at her legs over the edge, feet moving around and a backpack that looks empty discarded on the floor. She smiles, but it doesn't reach her eyes. 

"No, I had a thing to do" she says, vague, letting her gaze fly around, avoiding Steve's for a moment and giving him bad feelings about it. He doesn’t ask anyway. "I've told the boys I would have meet them there" 

"They aren't here yet" 

"I know" Max glances at her wristwatch and then looks at Steve again. "Lucas had basketball practice. Must have ended now. They will be here soon" 

The boy nods, not really knowing what to say or how to act, when Max's eyes seem like they want to say something else, something more. She has that weirdly awkward smile hanging on her lips, so uncomfortable that he's tempted to ask what she needs to ask so badly. But he doesn't have the time to do so, because she's already talking while her feet bounce over the edge of the counter. 

"There's no one sharing with you the shift?" she asks, curiously. "Are you alone?" 

Steve shakes his head and makes a face. "No, Jacob had to leave early. He received a call on the back and said it was urgent, but I don't know what happened" 

"Maybe he just wanted to go home" Max throws a glance to the empty aisles. "This place and your face say no one is been here in the past-" 

"Two hours, at least'' Steve says, shrugging. "The most exciting meeting was with an old lady that came this morning to return a cheesy love movie and went away with four other VHSs. Then a customer here and there, until the calm arrived. You're the first face I see in a long time" 

"Hope a nice face" 

"Always welcomed" Steve assures and Max laughs quietly. "But don't tell the others I told you that. They'll get all jealous and I'm not ready to fix their broken hearts" 

"It will be the first thing I'll tell Dustin" the redhead replies and the boy shakes his head, amused to finally talking to someone. Especially a person he's familiar with. She pushes her hair behind and Steve notices how she _tries_ to get comfortable on the counter, shifting a bit and turning her face suddenly serious. Steve isn't sure he likes it and feels like he knows what she's about to tell, in the right moment her mouth part to say something else. "What happened with Billy? If I can ask"

For a fraction of second, Steve turns in stone, immobilized by the anxiousness and the fear that Max's words trapped him in. She's looking at him and he's looking at her, face serious and both curious by the other's words and reactions, but then she frowns and he knows he's giving himself away. Too much. 

Steve tries to recollect his thoughts and the expression on his face, looking away, swallowing not too hard to get used to talking again and giving a proper answer, but without looking uncomfortable about the topic. Max waits, eyebrow lifts in her perpetual judgmental face. It would remember Billy's one if it wasn't for the fact that her brother's judging face is mostly like stone, it's blank and frozen, while hers is full of details. If Steve wouldn't have known her better, he would have probably been pissed by her attitude, but he knows her and she's a nice person under all of those faces she makes. 

"Nothing" the boy exhales in the end. Opens his arm, trying to underline his answer. "What makes-what makes you say that?" 

"I don't know" the redhead shrugs and her hair moves over her shoulders covered in what Steve guesses is a man shirt. "He's been… A lot at home after work. He avoided it for a while when he could, in the past months, and I always guessed he was with you, since you two-" 

" _What_ " Steve interrupts, throat dry, heart pounding like shotguns in a quiet morning.

"Since you two are friends" Max says faking nonchalance, but her tone lets see that she's being extremely careful with her choice of words. Her eyes super vigil. "So now he's being all work and home, home and work, and he pretty much stays in his room doing nothing except for listening to loud music. Neil doesn't like it" 

"What?" Steve interjects. "Billy staying in his room, or him staying at home?" 

"Both?" Max asks and it's clear she means it as an obvious question. "He always makes sure to tell him how miserable his life looks, when we are having dinner, or my mom asks him if he wants to do breakfast and he runs away. Neil is an ass. Especially now that Billy is mostly alone" 

"Does his dad hurt him?" Steve asks and, when he understand it's a dumb question because a father insulting a son always hurt, he explains himself. "Physically" 

Max looks for a long moment in Steve's eyes and she's so serious that the boy is concretely scared about her answer. But, in the end, she slowly shakes her head. 

"Neil is the worst kind of coward" she replies, quietly, moving her stare down on the counter she's sitting in. She's nervous, the Family Video employer guesses, from the way her hands are moving around each other on her lap. "He knows about Billy medical appointments, he won't risk someone to make questions. He's being enough of an asshole just with his words" 

Steve stays quiet, swallowing hard this time and not trying to hide it. She's not looking at her anyway and he's not looking at her. He leans with his hip against the counter. 

"We had a fight" he announces in the end, eyes down and noticing a movement from Max on the corner of one of them. He doesn't dare to exchange a glance with her. "I'm not sure he wants us to be friends anymore, so-" 

"That's not true" 

"You don't know that" Steve laughs nervously. "You don't even know what happened"

"No, I don't" the girl says, concern in her voice. "But-" thoughtful, she calculates her next words, like she's not sure she should tell them. Steve can only guess from her expression, at least, reminding him a lot of her stepbrother. "I know Billy's bullshit about California. That it was better there. And maybe it was, for him. But he never really was the kind to make friends, you know, _real_ friends" the boy doesn't think he should answer, he's pretty sure it's a rhetorical question, so he keeps his mouth shut. "He had a lot of people around, some more than others, a lot of acquaintances and classmates to hang with, but he never had people he called friends. Like I call friends the boys. He had this two guys that followed him around, but they were a mess, I think they annoyed Billy half of the time"

"If you're hoping I'm the exception, Billy's friend among acquaintances, you're seeing more than it actually is" Steve says in the end, maybe resigned. He's thinking about their last encounter a week prior, out of the store where Steve works, and there's bitterness on his tongue as he relives it all. Billy didn't look for him for the past six days and Steve thought that the boy made his decision about being friends, so he even avoided driving by the general store. Billy doesn't want to try again and now Steve's life has to go on, accepting all the rejections the other gave him. "Hawkins hasn't much to offer, so there aren't many people he could hang out with. Probably I was there and it was alright, until it wasn't" 

"Oh, Jesus, are you serious?" Max spats and her eyes are wide, her face contracted like she can't believe it. His words. "Old Billy? Probably, yes. New Billy? Definitely not. New Billy cut his hair in a buzzcut again after rehab because he couldn't see his old self in the mirror. He won't tell me, but I know it. New Billy didn't leave his room for weeks after going back in town. I think that new Billy trusted you more than I could have expected to go out from his shell and live again. He wasn't someone that hid, in the past, not with people out of our family. He faced them, challenged you many times. Now he's bashful with everyone, but I can see when he's not. He's lighter since he came back and whether you like it or not it's also because of you. You had all the reasons to ignore him, but you didn't and he knows that"

Steve isn't sure what he should say. Ask her if she thinks they will ever get back together. As friends, of course. Or if he should just stay silent and not risk to say something that could ruin what secretly Billy and him built. Even though, in the end, they destroyed it with their bare hands. 

"You're projecting" Steve exhales in the end. A sigh and he almost laughs when he thinks that Max's brother would probably ask him to not. The boy refrains himself anyway. "You want us to be friends and you're seeing whatever you want to see. Maybe you're right about the past, about what happened after his rehabilitation, he was in a terrible place back then, but I- _we_ messed up this time. It was inevitable and now we arrived to a point where there's no way back. He starting living again and I-"

"But-" Max starts and Steve interrupts. 

"No _buts_ " he says, not really patiently. He's sick of buts following him around. "We messed up and I gave him a way out. A way to fix what I started to break and what he helped to destroy. I haven't seen him since then. It must mean something, don't you think?" Max eyes lowered, her mouth closed. "Sometimes things don't go how we want. I never expected to befriend him and I didn't expect to… Do what I did to threaten our relationship. Completely. Billy wasn't in my plans, okay? I mean, my life goes pretty much how it wants to go because I understood that maybe I'm not someone that has many ambitions, but I learned to accept what it's offered in the meantime. Billy was something I learned to let happen in my life. It worked until we could make it work. Now, he doesn't want to fix it and I can't always beg people to give me another chance, if they don't feel like I fit with their plans anymore. Whatever you think he feels for California, it's there that he wants to go. It's what he will choose"

Max stays quiet for a couple of moments, eyes moving unsure between Steve and her hands. He feels like he's been just run over by a train, words missing from the tip of his tongue and his breath suddenly short. He pushes his hair back in a gesture that he always does, but that now looks like nervousness over him. 

"I wanted, Max. Being his friend" Steve whispers, but _being something more too_ would be more appropriate. "He decided we couldn't be friends anymore. And people's decisions must be respected"

"He's not acting like he likes how things are going. Whatever happened, he liked staying with you. I can tell" she says back, slowly and quietly like it's a secret. _Not enough to stick with me_ , the boy would like to add, but keeps his mouth shut. He gives her an apologetic smile and Max has no idea what storm Steve is going through. She purses her lips. "He needs a friend. He needs people who care about him, even though he doesn't know how to deal with them most of the time. But it's not his fault" 

"Max-"

"He has many faults, okay? He didn't grow up in the most chill environment, but I know most of his egoistic and violent behaviors were his choices. Not Neil's. I know, Steve, they were his" she takes a breath. "But now he's not that person anymore. Now he _wants to_ , but he _can't_ " 

"What are you talking about" he whispers and shakes his head. "You're making no sense, right now" 

"Love someone. Being loved" Max spats and her eyes are asking him if he's being really that obtuse. With a sense of nostalgia, that lasts just a fraction of time before he realizes the meaning behind her words, he thinks she reminds him of Robin. He misses Robin. "He has no clue about what loving someone means. Or being loved by someone. And now he's just scared because it's probably bigger than he expected"

Steve blinks. Once. Twice. Three times. And then he takes a long breath, inhales and then he's exhaling right while talking out what he's thinking. His hands are sweating. 

"You know" the boy says and she looks to a shelf behind Steve, avoiding his gaze. _She knows_ he repeats in his head and her guilty face tells him a lot.

"Guessed" the girl admits, which in the Family Video employer's mind sounds like _you just confirmed_ and he would like to throw up, or scream. Maybe both. When things for Steve get complicated, there's always something else more complicated to add on the list. "He's scared. Just scared. And can you blame him? The world isn't that accepting, Hawkins definitely less. And Neil… He made sure Billy wouldn't think to deserve it. He tormented him enough to not let him think he could have meet someone who would show him that isn't everything wrong outside our family, that people get attached and feel emotions and it's fine" 

Steve's eyes blur and he swears to himself he won't just explode in a hysterical crying in front of a teenager analyzing his life, nor he won't explode in a hysterical laugh because Max's words sound a lot like what Steve tried to make Billy understand for years now. That he deserves happiness and should stop sabotaging himself. 

Now, Max knows what's going on between Steve and Billy -or probably she made up something similar to the reality- and, at this point, denying is useless, maybe it could even make things worse. He's terrible at lying. So the boy takes a breath, one that should stop him from wanting to cry and shake, or laugh compulsively, and risking his eyes burning and his head to pound like thousands of cannonballs. He doesn't exclude an aneurysm in the near future. 

"I tried" he admits. "He didn't let me. He's like a scared animal trying things for the first time. He backs up and runs" 

"He likes you" 

Steve thinks back to a couple of, nights before, out of the Family Video, or at the girl he dated even before, _went out_ for reasons he never explained if, hearing Billy, he wasn't attracted to her. It's bitter. The boy sighs. "I'm not sure about what you want to hear. What you want me to say"

"That you will try again" she says and when he opens his mouth to interjects, she keeps talking. "I know he's probably being difficult, but he just needs someone more stubborn than he is. If you give up, he will give up" 

Steve contemplates her words, one by one, from the start of their conversation, to the end of it. He doesn't like it. He knows Max hasn't bad intentions, but Steve feels like he's being pushed and pushed until he will probably lose his mind, thinking about everything going wrong in his life. Because it's not just Billy, he's just a piece of Steve's downfall: he told Max he takes what life gives him, that he's maybe someone who doesn't have ambitions, but it's not always easy accepting it as a life philosophy. He's twenty-one, he has a whole life in front of him and deciding for a change, a drastic one, is constantly on his mind, every day. Hawkins is home, but home isn't always welcomed and sometimes is troubled, all his friends left for college -Nancy and Robin, even Jonathan- and what's left are a bunch of kids growing up and ready to follow their relatives and older friends, leave for study nearby or far away. He doubts any of them will stay and even if they would, he can't keep counting on their presence, they'll move on to something else, work or whatever and he will stay alone. Lonely. Which is the perfect adjective that would describe Steve Harrington: lonely. He had people around that he thought were his friends and that suddenly weren't anymore, then a different kind of friends happened in his life. They were the ones he loved, that he would have died for and with, that he watched say their goodbye leaving Steve to be what he always was: a lonely wolf, looking for a pack while starting to understand how being on his own, just because he was forced to. People say it's better staying alone, never trust the others, but they don't really believe it and Steve doesn't either. He's not made to die alone, and even if he would try, he would probably freak out looking for a friendly face, or an intimate gesture. 

In the past days, he contemplates leaving. This time for real. He could just pack his things right now and move to Chicago with Robin: at this point, waiting for Billy to leave would be just useless. He will move away in a couple of months without looking at his back, to shitty Hawkins, or to a crushed Harrington. So, Steve is contemplating. Maybe the lonely wolf could turn towards a new adventure, new living and work arrangements and see how it goes after that. He contemplated the possibility of leaving for real this time, because life goes how it wants, puts on his path whoever it wants, but Steve can give it a push in a direction or another and see what's up for him. A reaction to his action. And Chicago isn't his dream, but he can make it work anyway. Better than staying in Hawkins, when everything he could have had disappeared. 

Looking at Max and her request, while his mind is making half projects, contemplating possibilities, he's not sure he wants to chase Billy anymore. They had something and the other couldn't keep it and now Steve doesn't want to be the one fixing what's broken between the pair. He spent all his youth making the first move, overworking for someone and also ending with his heart in thousands pieces: he looked for compromises, he looked to change his mind and thoughts, all to please someone else. He doesn't want to do that anymore. If he wants his life to change a bit, his passive behaviors must end as well and begging Billy to get back to their old affair would mean disrespecting himself just because he _feels_. Because he has feelings for Billy. He wants to feel them, but for himself too. 

"No" he says, low tone, eyes soft. Max frowns, lips parted. "I'm sorry. Can't happen"

"But-" 

"No" Steve insists and he tries to keep his tone down. "No. Have you ever been rejected, Max? Do you have any remote idea what means always being the one accepting compromises to make the others happy? No, because you arrived in awful Hawkins when you were thirteen, you made friends, you had your first and long term boyfriend and you have a mom who loves you and a brother that sacrificed himself for you. Usually, I'm the one sacrificing myself for others happiness. I tried with your Billy, okay? But I can't always keep trying and bending over and over again for people that will throw me away anyway. It's not good. If Billy wants whatever happened between us to keep happening, _if_ he cares, then he's the one to not giving up on me" 

_For once_ is unsaid and after a moment of silence and stall, Max nods, but her eyes aren't sure. She looks like a mix of feelings are going through her and Steve almost pats her friendly asking to let it go, take a breath and don't worry. He almost does. Instead, he attempts a smile that says _I'm okay, are you okay?_ She nods again and, after a long moment of silence, she purses her lips, before commenting on a movie she saw the week before with the boys. The VHS is displayed behind the counter and Steve is glad for the chance of topic. It's forced, he knows that, and between them there's a weird and heavy tension as they try to break the ice.

When the rest of the gang come through the glass door, Steve is _really_ glad. It doesn't stop him from smiling shyly to Max, when her and the boys start recollecting their belongings to leave, almost an hour later, between an argument and another. She attempts a smile back. 

  


Billy is sitting on the hood of Steve's car, when the Family Video employer leaves for work two days after, mind busy, shoulders tense from an anger following him from a while now. The real fire that morning with his dad that told him he was wasting time while he could do something useful, like having a proper job, as he was trying to have a decent breakfast and his mom stayed quiet and shook her head, against which one of the two, he wasn't sure.

Steve is so absorbed by his thoughts as he leaves his workplace on that Friday afternoon, that he walks straight to his car, head not really down, but eyes so unfocused that Billy thinks he will sit in his car and start the engine, without noticing him waiting over his expensive BMW. Steve is, in fact, about to reach for the car, lips purses, when Billy decides that it's been enough and stops pretending he's not there, or stops waiting for the boy to notice him when it's clear he won't anytime soon. He clears his throat and Steve's head snaps, eyes wide, lips that don't attempt to soften. Not even when Billy shows a hard but definitely unsure smile, that gives the other time to run away from him. He doesn't and Steve is suddenly super sure about what's around them, the arcade that's packed with people of all the ages and teens filling the parking lot, as he looks back and forth between Billy and a group of people chatting loudly not far away. They don't look like they care about anything except their conversation. 

There's a long moment of silence between the pair, when Steve comes back to Billy and only Billy, eyes locking and lips tense in a tiny line, that says he won't relax anytime soon. If the younger thinks about asking what's going on for Steve to be in such a bad mood, or what happened in the past days in which Billy's tried to disappear and clear his mind, he thinks it's better to not and stay quiet. He's the one pursing his lips this time, waiting for Steve to ask what he's doing there with the most bothered tone. It never comes. 

"Hey" Billy says low, slow and soft, after sitting on that car for almost an hour, cold running through his spine, wind cutting his cheeks. Entering the shop seemed too much, too forced, so he quietly made himself comfortable on Steve's car and waited. He expected a more loud reaction from the other, he must admit it, but a heavy painful silence was his second option so he's not really surprised. He deserved it. 

"Hey" Steve says but he doesn't let his guard down, it's just stronger with the tension heavy on his constantly curved shoulders. His tone isn't exactly comfortable, but neither uncomfortable by having Billy in front of him: maybe he's a bit surprised, without wanting to show it and remembering their last encounter in that exact place. A place Billy avoided to walk by for days. He's not proud about his week of radio silence and he can see the result on Steve's face and posture: maybe it's not just that -their fight- but he's pretty sure he's one of the reasons why Steve looks so tired. 

"How are you?" Billy asks, politely. Maybe too much, it's not like he's used to ask Steve how he's doing, not like that: usually they aren't _that_ polite and they talk in more intimate contexts, alone, without people that could overheard and, mostly, without an implicitly request, because, in some sort of way, they trust each other enough to share without being prompted. Now, Billy is just extremely polite, keeping an appearance and maybe testing Steve's boundaries a bit. 

"Great" the other spats and doesn't try to resume his walk and run away, so maybe it means something. Or the other hopes so. "Thanks for your concern" 

Billy makes a face. It stings a bit. "Can we talk?"

Steve takes his time, putting his hands inside the pocket of his jacket and avoiding to show how cold he's feeling, while Billy stands there, looking, waiting for a word or a reaction. Steve hates seeing that uncertain expression painted over their other's boy face, because it means Billy is hurt, or close to, and he doesn't have any idea how to really deal with what's he's going through and Steve isn't used anymore to being seen as a threat from Billy. As he would like to soften, he thinks he's hurt as much as him, maybe more considering he was the one putting his feelings in the other's hands, just to see them reduced in pieces.

"I don't know" Steve mutters and he's sincere about it: he doesn't know. He's angry about the fact that Billy went missing for days leaving him wandering, after a half reject, while Steve can't deny he waited a bit for this moment. He hoped, at least, because Billy not looking for him anymore would have been like a huge loud smack he wasn't ready to receive. "I'm really tired"

"Okay" Billy exhales without any particular inclination, looking around maybe with a bit of uncertainty. He swallows, before locking eyes with his interlocutor. "I think we should talk. When you will be okay with it, or you won't be tired" 

Billy waits, a moment, then another, and for the whole time he keeps his stare in Steve's unreadable one. He's not sure what he's waiting for, probably that the other will tell him _let's talk_ , but it never comes anyway and he takes a deep loud breath. He pushes himself away from the hood of the car and with slow steps walks away from it and towards Steve, stopping to a safe distance. 

"I'm very conflicted about asking again to talk, or let you alone because you seem like you could use some rest" he admits, without receiving a reaction or a response. Again. Steve just blinks, lips purses and eyes _off_. "Okay. Let me… Let me know when and if you'll want to talk to me"

There's another moment of stall, silence only interrupted by the people around the parking lot, before Billy nods in Steve's direction, ducks his head down and squeezes himself into his jacket, probably fighting both the cold and Steve's silence. He makes a face and then he just walks away, with his sure steps but his head down, like he's been pushed many times and he can't defend himself anymore. Finally, Steve lets himself go, closes his eyes and exhales, not really relaxing but feeling like he's starting to breathe again. Not completely, but enough for his mind to stop panicking over Billy's sudden come back and starting understanding what he wants to talk about (Steve has an idea) and what he's going to do about it. The Family Video employer turns on his heels. 

"Hey" he shouts to Billy's shoulders, watching the boy turning as well, but also noticing a couple of surprised and maybe curious glances thrown their way, back and forth, by the group nearby. Steve swallows, ignoring the strangers and acknowledging Billy, whose attention shifts between the boy and the lot, eyebrows lift in a challenging way, because he can't let people know he's actually uncomfortable about being seen with another guy. He's paranoid about it, Steve can't really blame him though and that's the reason why he nods towards his car and starts walking towards the driver's door. "If you still want that ride, get inside, Hargrove" 

Steve doesn't really want anyone to observe them and thinking they are doing something _wrong_ -if it can be called that way- so he's quick to walk to his car, open the driven door with all the nonchalance of the world and sit in his place with the most unreadable face. He doesn't look for Billy, not he cheeks he followed his suggestion, he just starts the engine, hands shaking and a bit sweat too, knowing he will hear the sound of the passenger door open and close. He doesn't move his stare from a random point in front of him, it seems like he's not focusing on anything, but instead his senses are amplified by the nervousness growing in his bones and they boost when Billy finally falls next to him. He doesn't say a word, neither Steve, so the former gets comfortable and the latter exits the parking lot, putting the reverse. The wheels screech against the ground loudly and annoyingly, but Steve just pushes a bit harder his foot on the gas pedal. He doesn't drive particularly fast, Billy used to speed with his Camaro like a psycho, like he was the only one on the street, but Steve glances his way anyway. 

"Put your seatbelt on" he says with a tone that doesn't accept a no as an answer, so when he sees on the corner of his eyes Billy opening his mouth, he interrupts him before he could protest. " _Put_ _it_ _on_ " 

Steve pretends to not hear the soft annoyed imprecation, mixed to a couple of sighs, as his passenger follows the instructions and he drives he has no idea where. He just goes, following the road without a goal and without saying a word to the other, but seeing Billy opening and closing his mouth many times, without letting a single syllable out. Steve thinks it's better like this, because suddenly he's scared again considering Billy wants to talk and the last time they talked they ended fighting. He grips his hands hard and tight around the wheel, not really focusing about where he's driving, and he just follows the street, while his mind keeps wandering about what they are going to talk about. The topic is pretty much obvious, but there's the big incognite that is taunting Steve: is Billy about to accept his proposal to stay friends, or there's a bigger discussion on the table for the two of them? Steve doesn't want to build false hopes, but it's inevitable for him to keep switching his attention back and forth between what's coming and the person clearly uncomfortable next to him. When Steve decides it's time to face their unresolved issues, he glances around to see where his feet and his distracted mind brought them: they are still around the schools, not far from the Family Video, so they must have driven around the neighborhood without Steve noticing. Billy didn't say anything, even though his eyes are scanning what's around them like it's really interesting, and the driver asks himself if he didn't because he's thinking about something else too, or because he guessed what was going on in Steve's mind. Without an answer, he drives past the middle and high school once again and moves towards some secondary streets for a couple of minutes, wandering away the residential area and looking for an escape from any unwanted attention: when the house starts getting always less and then almost no existing, as he gets closer to the woods around the town, he decides to pull over on a side of the road, but keeping a safe distance from the threes. Steve doesn't like and, in the past years, he stayed away from them as much as he could. Even at home, he avoided going in the garden, or the pool, or leaving the backyard for a walk.

Billy looks around and then to Steve, when the driver stops the engine and stares in front of him expressionless and quiet. His hands are between his legs now, his lips purse a bit and the passenger can see when Steve's is tormenting himself, so he decides to not make any comment about the place where he stopped the car. There's a house a couple of feet away, before the woods, but no one seems to be around and, he also hopes, no one would casually pass by them. 

"Hey" Billy calls and Steve's head turns simultaneously towards him, like the sound of his deep voice slapped him out of his head. "You okay?" 

_That's Billy's honest concern_ , Steve thinks as he rethinks to the boy's false politeness when he asked how he was in front of the Family Video shop. The one behind the wheel lowers his eyes from Billy's face, to somewhere vague between their seats and then back to Billy, without malice, without madness, without anything that the younger expected. 

Steve blinks and when he faces again a vague spot in front of him, he sighs and it sounds a lot like an answer. "What do you want to talk about"

Billy is taken by surprise, not expecting that request when he, in fact, should have expected exactly that after disappearing for days. He looks to Steve and Steve looks away, knowing he's trying to put a wall between them because he's scared and it's written all over his emotionless face. Billy knows that because Steve's been his only friend and lover and confidant in the past year, or maybe since ever, and he learned how to read him even when he doesn't want Billy to. 

"I'm sorry about the other night" he starts, clearing his throat. "That's what I want to talk about. About the other night and, you know, everything else related to it" 

Steve looks down, to his hands playing nervously between one and another. "I'm listening" 

Billy takes a breath, a deep one, like he needs a dose of courage. A push in the right direction.

"I went to the lab two days ago" he starts and Steve's eyebrows lift, trying to link Billy's medical appointments to their fight out of his workplace. However, he stays quiet, but glances in the other's direction with curiosity. He locks eyes with Billy, who's already observing him. "I went with Max, because she insisted when I told her I had my check and I would have taken the bus. She can be really really stubborn, so she convinced Susan to make us borrow her car and to tag along. I didn't want to, but she insisted" suddenly, something in Steve's mind clicks and he thinks to know why Max skipped school two days prior, dropping to Video Family next. He can't really forget their discussion and it all starts to make sense. He puts the pieces together and he doesn't like the feeling in his stomach, the guilty one that reminds him that he should have been the one driving Billy. "Owens asked about you" 

Steve's head lifts and turns completely towards Billy, his neck almost cracks. They have always been careful to not show up together in places, or don't let others see them too close, because they were friends, but they were also kind of private about it and they thought that people could have had the wrong impression. Which would have been also kind of true. Steve thought that going to someone's medical appointment was something private and he never wanted to step over their boundaries, or Billy's ones, so he made sure to give the boy his full support the first time he drove to the laboratory and silently asked him if he needed him to walk inside with him. That time Billy told Steve he would have made it quick and he stayed inside a whole hour, but the other waited by the car knowing that it was his right place to be. He wouldn't have backed up if Billy would have asked him for his presence during the appointment, or just walked with him and then waited for him in hallways, but it didn't work like that and he was totally fine with staying outside. It became a habit: wait over the hood of the car if the day was nice, smoke just because of boredom, look around the place with scared eyes and wait for Billy to show up from inside. At the beginning he noticed doctor Owens observing them -Steve can't forget the feelings to be studied from the building, right out the main door- but eventually he stopped looking for the man's eyes and tried to not think about it. He and Billy weren't doing anything wrong and he was just being paranoid. 

Now, Steve doesn't expect to be still checked by some stranger he doesn't even properly know, but apparently doctor Owens was still watching Steve and Billy and he just ignored it, like it wasn't a problem. 

"Why would he ask about me?" the older asks and the other doesn't move, just stares to Steve and doesn't try to answer. "I didn't even ever met the guy"

There's a pause, a long one's, in which their eyes are locked and on Billy's face the boy can see a flinch. It's barely visible, because as fast as it comes, it goes, but it happens. Billy looks away, almost ashamed as he swallows, and Steve is honestly confused. 

"I-" the boy on the passenger seat starts, but he lowers his eyes to his hands now rubbing his knees. "I may have told something about you from time to time"

Steve blinks confused, maybe even shocked. "About me?" 

"Nothing too personal, but sometimes they made questions and I answered and your name came out a couple of times" Billy says, practical, almost like he's talking about the weather. His voice is low and deep. "It was inevitable" 

"What did you tell them" Steve asks flatly, trying to not show too much of himself. 

"That you've been my first and only friend, when they asked me if I had people I trusted" Billy exhales and, still, his eyes are glued in front of him and Steve can openly stare. He guesses the other can feel his attention on him, but he doesn't care. "I've told them that"

"Just that?" A long silence follows and Steve observes the boy like he's about to break, nervousness gripping him tight and his hands that keep rubbing over his knees covered in a pair of jeans. In any other circumstance, he would put his hand over Billy's, but now it's not the case. "Billy-"

"No, I've told about how I _felt_ a couple of times" and it's like a huge secret he couldn't keep anymore and that he carried for long enough. "Remember that time when we went to the diner next to the cinema, after we went to see that dumb movie about aliens with Max and her nerd friends and we left in the middle of the movie? I bumped into that guy walking out the door and-" 

Steve nods and when he realizes Billy is not looking at him, he clears his throat. Memories vivid on his mind. "Yeah. He shouts at you and walked away, but you were having-" 

The world _panic attack_ stays unsaid. A breath fills the space instead, knowing how easy Billy could run away. Steve doesn't want him to. 

"You helped me out of it. You brought me out and held me until I was okay again" Steve can't really forget about anything related to Billy, because everything feels exceptionally important, to take care of. And that time, he took care of it -him- he told him that there wasn't anything to be afraid of, that there were just the two of them and, somehow, Billy listened. "There are psychologists on my appointments, they don't even look at me like I'm a freak, they barely talk except for doing flat questions and, if an episode happens, they want to know about it and they make questions about it. You were with me a lot of times and you do this thing in which, you-" he swallows. "You touch me. Not keeping me tight only. You _touch_ me, like put your hands on me when you're not sure I'm okay and your fingers linger over mine from time to time and this is… Good? So I-" 

"You told them" Steve says and it comes out unvolutary, almost like a thought that shouldn't have been shared. Billy's head snaps, eyes wide and face contracted. 

"I had to" and it sounds almost like a justification. "I-You told me to let them help me, to not push them away. And it was the right thing to do if I had to know if I was okay, if I was going crazy or possessed again. But I never said anything private about us" 

Steve blinks again and Billy waits, eyes moving frantically, his stare in Steve's eyes, his lips, then his hand hanging around the wheel, then back to his lips. 

"I don't care" the other says and Billy isn't sure he heard right. He blinks at Steve and, almost like he read the boy's mind, he repeats it. "I don't care if they know. They are the last people I could be scared to find out about us" 

_About what we had_ echoes in the car, between the two of them. 

"You never are" Billy interjects abruptly and Steve's eyes blink once, then twice, when suddenly one of the other's hands reaches for the driver closer one and tugs at it, asking for attention. Steve only gives him a confused stare. "Why aren't you?"

"I'm not scared" the boy repeats and Billy is still, but he knows that. Steve is many things, and brave is one or them for sure. He let's the passenger find his fingers and squeezes them gently, before leading them between the seats on a neutral territory that aren't their thighs. Steve keeps glancing at their linked hands, confusion painted over his face: Billy never started that kind of action, it's always Steve the one that gives touches and the other starves for them. Usually, he takes everything he can. "What are you-" 

_Saying_. _Doing_. He doesn't end his phrase. 

"It would be easier" Billy says and Steve feels like he's not breathing, like his body temperature is suddenly too high, too hot and the clothes he's wearing are an enormous weight over him. He tries to not freak out about Billy holding his hand, Billy looking at him like his life depends on it. Steve tries to breath through the collars of his too many clothes. "If you would be scared sometimes, it would be easier"

Billy's hand over Steve's suddenly burns and the latter pulls it away, like it's fire. The former flinches. 

"Sorry to disappoint" he spats and the passenger seems annoyed by the interruption, or even by the fact Steve backed away from his touch. Now, that's more typical of Billy and the driver would like to say he's scared tons of times. "You wanted to talk. That's what you wanted to talk about?" 

"I'm doing a speech that has a logic, okay?" he narrows his eyes. "I'm trying here, let me finish"

"You suck at it" Steve says, like he must have the last word and he can't refrain himself from saying it loudly, for Billy to hear. Then, he shuts his mouth and waits. 

A breath from the other boy. 

"I know you are. Scared, I mean, sometimes" Billy whispers and he looks down, to his hands. He swallows and then glances back to Steve. Quickly. Shortly. "I know you are. But some others you're not and it fuck me up, okay? You're scared, until the problem explodes in front of you and instead of walking around it, you face it" a pause, probably thinking Steve would interrupt to say something about it. The older boy refrains the need to spat an annoyed _that's what being mature means_ , because it would be like letting Billy win. "I'm not like you. I don’t know how to face them, I have no idea how to do that. It always ends badly for me. But it's not like things are getting better lately" 

Billy plays with the silver ring on his hand and Steve observes him, his fingers moving around each other, his long eyelashes framing his already blurry eyes.

"What are you-" 

"In the past days, I couldn't stop myself from asking if it would have bothered me if you would have gone out with someone else. And the answer is that it would have. Bothered me" Billy admits and he swallows, really hard. Steve's heart races fast and he can't imagine what's going on inside the other, when he's always so subtle about his never spoken feelings. He keeps his eyes down. "It's been, what, a week? And things aren't going well. I thought… I thought that stopping seeing each other would have been better, you know, for me, because we were attaching to what we had and it wouldn't have lasted, so parting ways now seemed almost like a relief. You wanted something from me and instead of accepting and paying for it later, when I would have left, I thought it was the right time to cut it before things got even more complicated. It's easier to push feelings away, when they are just born. The more you wait, the more it… Hurt"

" _But_ " Steve asks even though it isn't really a question. And he should be happier knowing that, in that case, for once, from a _but_ could come something good after the storm. They are facing the aftermath of it, but Steve is so busy trying to make sure he's alive after Billy's stormy speech, that he almost can't think about what could potentially come next. "I feel… I feel like there's a _but_ " 

"Of course there's a _but_ , or I wouldn't be here" Billy exhales and looks up at Steve, but his mocking tone doesn't match the seriousness on his face. He sighs. "What you said to me, the other night, it was fair. I run from things, later, we both know that. And I tried running from you too, because it scared me. You were scared too, but you cornered me anyway and told me what you felt, but I'm not like you. I'm not. And running away is easier. But the past week wasn't and I thought that it would have bothered me if you would have gone out with someone else. And all those things you said about yourself… You're not a hobby and I don't want to be _friends_ , it would be like wasting time anyway. And you're the one that waits for me to every appointment without insisting on coming inside, or wanting to know what we talk about. Not even my own father bothers to offer me a ride to go there. But you're there everytime and you always look at me, before asking what happened. And you're not curious, you're just concerned. This isn't temporary"

Steve doesn't know if he should feel relieved or not, so he glances a couple of times to a tormented Billy, before swallowing hard. "What about California. You'll leave, and Hawkins will be temporary. _I_ will be temporary im the end"

Billy looks up, flinching when he finds Steve's eyes and gripping one hand in another. He blinks. "I can't stay, you know I can't"

"I know" 

"But I don't want to leave knowing we didn't even talk, or look at each other anymore" Billy explains, quickly. "I want to try to make things right until then. We have months"

Steve is the one looking down now, to his hands, suddenly the most interesting thing, when Billy's eyes are still clearly on him. He could just tell him he's not mad, not anymore, that it's okay and now they can kiss if Billy's meaning behind his speech was that. Make peace. Instead, Steve purses his lips and refrains himself from letting himself go too easily. 

"What about her?" he asks and he doesn't care to sound jealous about something he shouldn't be jealous of, in the first place. He feels Billy shifting next to him. "You said you weren't attracted to her. You said you may have feelings for me and that you want to make things right now. But if you felt… _That way_ , why did you get out with her?" 

There's silence. Obviously there is silence and it goes for long moments, when Steve can't refrain himself from thinking that that's his answer. Quiet and heavy moments of stall in which Billy clearly doesn't want to tell aloud what the driver is afraid

to hear: that Steve was important but wasn't the only one, that they weren't exclusive and that he may have felt like there were some connection between the two of them, but it was naive to think that that Billy wouldn't have run after someone else, when Steve wasn't the only option anymore and he could have start living again. This hurt and, lately, a lot of things hurt. Just because Billy feels something for him doesn't mean he won't feel something else -anything- for another person. 

"I didn't have any interest in her" Billy admits, when Steve thinks he won't talk anymore. "She came a couple of times at the shop before you saw her that day you passed by. Before she asked me out. She was nice to me every time and when she invited me out I wasn't sure she wasn't joking. I'm tired of people in this shithole constantly looking at me like I'm a freak. I guess that's the payment for my past life, right?" Steve doesn't know if he should answer, but he has a feeling -a bad one- that tells him he doesn't want to hear what's coming next. He stays quiet, but looks up to Billy. "I didn't _like_ her. Not like that. But she asked me to hang out and no one asked me to hang out for a while now. Years, definitely. I was curious, that's all. Why she was being gentle to me, when you're literally the only one looking in my eyes since the accident at the mall. That's why I went out with her. Curiosity about what she found interesting in me, since everybody in this town knows me for the Starcourt accident. The kid who made it out alive. It wasn't a romantic date. I wanted, I don't know, a friend? A familiar face"

Steve feels guilty. Maybe because he shouldn't have asked, he was just pushed by a personal interest, or maybe because of the behavior of the town towards Billy in the past years that wasn't nice, not at all, and that Steve feels is his fault too. "This place is a mess, people don't know kindness. I'm sorry about that"

"I haven't been kind either, have I?" there's a _I'm paying for it_ that stays unsaid and that Steve feels because Billy always thinks he doesn't deserve things and blames himself for everything going wrong in his life. The older would like to remind Billy that he's been kinder to him in the past years more than all the people he spent his time with, even though they argue and fight and have different lives in front of them. But he does not say anything, because Billy's head is down, eyes to his hands, when a tear falls down to his jeans and Steve sees the barely visible movement of its reflection while dropping down. 

"Hey" he says in the end, not wasting time and bending over the passenger: his eyebrows furrow and one of his hands takes the boy by the nape of his neck. He caresses it, but his face stays serious. "Hey, look at me" and the boy looks up, without a second thought, because he trusts Steve. He would put his life in Steve Harrington's hand, knowing he would die to protect it. It's what he always does. Protect. "Want to tell me what happened that night?" 

There's a moment of silence. Another because Billy is full of voids, moments filled with nothing and all and Steve learned to know it, like he learned to know a heartbroken stare when he meets Billy's devastated eyes. Steve's fingers go now up and down the back of the other's nape, touching the naked and starved of touch skin and then losing themselves in the short dark blonde hair. 

"She kissed me" Billy admits and Steve's fingers stop for a second, before starting again, a bit surprised. Steve blinks, trying to understand where's the problem: if he means it like _she_ kissed him, or like _they_ kissed and maybe she was the one starting it. Billy never was one to complain about people flirting with him, but now Steve gets that he's not the same anymore and has no clue about how new Billy would act in such situations. However, it feels weird hearing Billy saying something like that with a low tone. Steve would like to be the one offended by it, but he has no rights to be, no right over who Billy wants to kiss for whatever reason, even though he would like to definitely show how jealous he feels.

"Did you-" he attempts to formulate a question. "Did you want her to kiss you?" 

Billy shakes his head. "This isn't the point" 

"Isn't it?" Steve asks, voice steady, but trying to be friendly. Someone the other feels comfortable enough to open up with. "Your previous words told me you didn't _like_ her like that. Why should you have liked kissing her, if you weren't interested in her? You don't go kissing people you don't like. Not anymore, I know you don't" 

Billy's eyes in Steve's are heavy. Beautiful. But sad. "She kissed me. I didn't think if I wanted or not, she did it so suddenly and I didn't have the time to metabolize. I guess that wasn't nice of her" 

"It wasn't" 

"Before she kissed me, we were parting ways because I asked her why she invited me out, after she only asked about the Starcourt. I was annoyed by her at this point, I'm not that patient" Billy admits, but Steve knows that already. "She was different from how she acted in the shop. I fucking hate when people bring the Starcourt up. Or when they look at me like-" he stops. He swallows. "You know how they look at me. You're the only one not giving the pity stare, or the curious one. Not even Max. She always has this concerned face when she's around me and doesn't want to tell the wrong thing and she treats me like I'm a hurt animal, or something. She needs time and courage to talk to me like I'm not older than her and-" 

"You're rambling" 

"Yeah. Maybe" Billy admits and his long eyelashes are framing watery and breathless eyes. "This girl-"

_There we are_ , Steve thinks, but he keeps his mouth shut and his fingers tracing patterns on Billy's skin. 

"She kept kissing me and she-" a pause, a beat. Steve waits and another tear falls down Billy's eye. "Her hands started getting under my shirt and she… She touched _them_ " 

Steve's throat sighs deeply, like he kept his breath for the whole time. "Billy-" 

"She touched them and it definitely stopped her from kissing me and you should have seen her face when her fingers touched my-"

He clears his throat, now starting to breathe badly, probably feeling like he wants to cry but trying to refrain himself. At that, to the panic inside the younger's chest, Steve makes their head collide, their eyes locked and their foreheads pressed one against the other. The boy's fingers grips Billy gently. 

"Don't even try to finish that sentence. I don't want to hear it" Steve says with a tone that should be sure, but warm at the same time. "Your scars mean you're alive, that you still breath and that you are brave. Because you are. You saved us all, you died for us and then you come back and I'm glad you did, because you deserve it. Everyone deserves a second chance and you've been blessed with another and thanks to whatever psycho God is watching over you" he pushes more their forehead together, but Billy doesn't talk. "Those scars are the most beautiful thing she will ever see. She doesn't deserve them, or you, do you hear me? I'm not saying that because we're friends. I'm saying it because I owe you my life and everyone of our friends owe you theirs. Those scars show us that you're a good person, even though the bad choices. But it's the past and I don't want you to blame yourself about what you were in high school, or what happened to you that summer. You paid the price. Those scars are the proof you did it and lived again to be a person who can make better choices. I love every single one of them" Steve says, breath short, throat dry. His forehead pulses against Billy's when he closes his eyes, enjoying the intimacy. He missed this. "I wouldn't change them for anything, but I know you see them like a burden. I know" 

"I like the new life" it's Billy's whisper and it comes quicker than Steve expected. He feels the younger's breath touch his face, but he keeps his eyes shut and waits. "I like what I have now. Less troubles. A sister. _You_. I'm glad, don't think I'm not: I learned my lesson and I grew up since then. But sometimes I miss some parts of my old life: the freedom to go out and meet new people and hear gossip about what girl I slept with. Nobody wants me anymore. No one looks at me like I'm worth something, they all remember what happened to me years ago. I'm not that. I don't want to be remembered for that"

"I want you" comes out faster than Steve had planned to and, maybe, if he had a second more to think about it, he would have probably kept it to himself. Or he could have chosen different words to express it. His eyes open, when he realizes the mistake, like a punch in the stomach. Billy's eyes are already looking at him, maybe they never stop behind that layer of tears. One rolls down his cheeks, when Steve thinks he already said it, so better not back down. He clears his throat and gets ready to talk again. "I want you. I think you're worth every second spent with you. And I don't care about who you were or how you look. I know you think we ended up together because we were two lost causes dealing with the aftermath of that summer, but I chose you and everything that meant, when you appeared at my workplace with a cold buzzcut. I loved that haircut"

Billy's lips, surprisingly, cracks a smile. Not a challenging one, but it looks genuine. Steve's stomach protests at the view. "You already told me" 

"Let me repeat it" Steve free hand takes Billy by the other side of his neck, pushing them together, like they can get any closer when their foreheads are basically glued. "I loved that hair. I love your scars. I love thinking I feel things for you, I really do. What I don't like about you is that you hate yourself, after all this time. Don't. You're a good person with a terrible past, it's time to try to move on. Enjoy what you have now without holding yourself back and maybe you'll have your old freedom back, maybe you'll go out and meet new people and you'll hear people talking about your sex life again. Terrible to say, but I got the point. You've been in your shell for too long and I want to help you out of it. How can I help you?"

"Kiss me" Billy whispers, like a secret. He's the one closing his eyes, this time. "Please" 

  


Billy is sitting on the edge of the window, the room around him drowning in the dark and only the light belonging to the moon illuminating enough to not be pitched back. Steve is observing him, lying on the bed and doesn't try to hide it, when the boy looking out the house, to the woods around the Harringtons, glances at him from time to time. Steve thinks he wants to make sure he's still awake, but he actually doesn't want to sleep. Not yet. It's been a long day, but he can wait.

It takes Billy another couple of moments before pushing the cigarette butt against the ashtray and getting down the edge of Steve's window: he closes it, before tiptoeing around the mattress and reaching his free side of the bed. The other, lying down, watches him for the whole time, observing his slow movements and admiring his scars gleaming under the night light, until he slips down the sheets and let the semi darkness embrace him in the same way Steve's arms look for his body to keep close. Billy let the boy find him easily, shifting enough to touch Steve's warm figure. They moved forward enough to not be scared anymore about intimacy after sex. 

There's a moment of silence then, after Billy gets conformable next to Steve, before the older interrupts the quiet. There's just a heavy breath to precede what he's about to say. 

"What about staying" he says, without really asking. He proposes it, like he learned to propose it in the past months: things between the two of them took an unexpected turn since their fight and their peace talk. They definitely do not hold hands now, but sometimes Billy stays until the morning and some others they even go out, to have a walk or to go grab something to the diner without them being subtle or sneaky about it. They walk to safe distance down Hawkins streets and their hands are mostly inside the pocket of their jackets, but Steve likes anyway acting like they are two friends, less scary to let others see them together, less paranoid. Not that they didn't go to the diner before, but their meals were always kind of quick and they were always ready to leave for being alone a couple of moments, before going to work or wherever. Now, they try to make everything work so they can see each other more out of Steve’s bedroom or car and without rushing things, they try to cut time to do normal things, like lunching out together like proper friends enjoying each other's company and without thinking to go somewhere secret to kiss, or make out. They now have plenty of time to do that, also because Billy stays longer at Steve's house at night and they talked about it: the older though it was because Neil Hargrove could have gone mad to his son, but Billy had to admit it was because of his bad sleep schedule and the nightmares coming to him every night circa. Steve was surprised, at first, more about him not thinking about it, than the actual admission: he knew what it meant by first hand, so he just kissed Billy's temple and asked _Do you really think I don't wake up in the middle of the night thinking about what we went through?_ another kiss and that gave Billy goosebumps. He stayed silent, but they worked through it, through _them_ , the nightmares and the scars. Steve is a lot quieter when they come taunting him, his eyes shut open and the only sound that his mouth produces is the heavy breath, the need to wake properly up and see he is in his bed, facing the ceiling. On the other hand, Billy is a lot louder: he shifts many times on the mattress, until he screams or just groans in pain and wakes up, suddenly on guard, sitting in the middle of the bed and then crying his eyes out. Both of them wake when the other is in pain, no exceptions, and then the healing process starts, every time like it's the first time. 

"Yeah" Billy whispers, he nods, but Steve can't see him. "I can. I'm tired"

"Good" the other whispers and his chin lays on the boy's head and when his eyes flutter shut, he thinks he might fall asleep after all, knowing he will wake up hopefully in the morning with Billy with him. Maybe, if he will work properly through the boy's heart, he could even convince him to stay the whole morning too: it will be Billy's free day and Steve will start working after lunch, but he won't insist if Billy won't feel like staying any longer. There are still boundaries he doesn't want to overstep. 

It's been a long day, the kids graduated and he's been happy the whole day, or at least he pretended everything was fine. He could say he was for the nerds, he was kind of proud and Robin told him that he looked like a sappy mom when he congratulated them and gave them all hugs and pats on their back, trying to remember them with their children faces not fighting monsters and not feel nostalgic about it. However, he couldn't stop thinking that the kids graduating meant Max packing for college and Billy leaving. They have maybe another month, or two in the best scenario, but not more than that and Steve avoided talking about it, so he also tried to enjoy the day how he should have done. Billy was at the graduation -of course he was- but they couldn't talk due to Mr. Hargrove's presence towering over his family, his hard features and his mouth smiling in a sinister way, so they kept distance until night, when the kids organized a chill night at the Wheelers basement and they were surprisingly invited. For Steve it should have been obvious, for Billy it clearly caught him off guard. 

Steve expected it to be awkward with Nancy and Robin there, but it wasn't, except that one time Mrs. Wheeler appeared from the top of the stairs and she was clearly surprised to see Billy there. The boy's unbothered eyes didn't even give her a proper recognition, he just looked at her for a second with his usual bored face and eventually turned to say something to Max. Mrs. Wheeler left right after and Steve would have laughed at Billy, if they didn't have company, so he kept it to himself and the other boy just cracked a smile in his general direction when their eyes locked. 

Nancy was polite as usual, sometimes in an annoying way, but still polite and Steve remembered he liked that about her, once.

On the other hand, Robin behaved and avoided making jokes about Steve's crush, even when they briefly found each other alone. She was too conscious about what it -Steve and Billy's relationship- could be, how dangerously precarious things were for the boys, so she smiled to her friend and sometimes to Billy as well, but she was more than happy to talk about other things with Nancy, or the kids. 

Contrary, Billy didn't talk much, he didn't dress up fancier than usual and he mostly stayed quiet, listening, looking and probably judging everyone in the room. It was typical Billy into a strange environment, but they drank and ate and he relaxed with the minutes and then hours passing by. Steve could have told that just by looking at him, but he had to keep a safe distance that told everyone that they were just friends, nothing more.

Steve fell in some conversations with the kids and Nancy mostly, because Robin made just unrequited but definitely missed jokes about random stuff and easy topics, so it went better than he could have thought of. Now, however, he's tired. 

"I'm gonna drive Max to her campus in two weeks" Billy suddenly says, when Steve is about to fall asleep. At his words, his eyes open. He doesn't answer, he waits and Billy must know that, because he links his hands with Steve's ones lying on his chest and talks again. "I'm gonna help her get there and unpack. We'll be back in two days. We're gonna stay at my mom's place. She's okay with Max tagging along, but my dad thinks Max is gonna stay in her campus dorm and he didn't worry about me enough to ask what I would have done. I still haven't told him I'm gonna move out" 

"Aren't you planning to?" Steve asks with a low voice. He's not sure he wants to talk about it, but they eventually have to. Billy doesn't seem bothered by that. 

"Yeah, when I'll have my things packed and ready to leave" Billy says and let a low deep laugh out of his throat. Steve senses some nervousness, which hits him enough to wake him properly, this time. "He'll kick me out in the instant he will find out. Not that he will be resentful about me choosing to go back to Cali because he'll think I chose my mom over him. He will probably more resentful about me staying at his house, when I could have left years ago"

"You're his son, for fuck's sake" Steve says softly. "And he let you pay the rent too" 

"He doesn't know what having a son means. Not even a daughter, even though he thinks he did a good job with Max in the past years. She hates him" a pause, a deep breath. His fingers slip between Steve's and against his skin, while the older lies on a side and keeps the other tight. Billy is facing the ceiling and, except for his hands, he doesn't move. "He doesn't know love"

Steve swallows, before talking. "You can stay here until you leave, if you want to move out of your dad's house. My parents won't mind if we tell them we are friends. We would just need to be careful" 

He didn't add that, this way, they can spend what's left together a little bit longer. He doesn't, but maybe Billy guesses. He shakes his head. 

"No, he's gonna pay until the last day. He doesn't deserve the relief of getting rid of me" 

"Okay" Steve whispers and then he falls silent. What should he say? That _he_ won't be relieved to see him leaving? That he will prefer asking Billy to stay at his house, pretending they are just friends in front of his parents, instead of knowing he will move away from Hawkins and from him? He can't say anything of it, so he shuts his mouth. Billy doesn't agree about Steve's silent request to stop talking about California. 

"I'm gonna look for a place to stay, when I'll drive Max to get to her campus" Billy continues and Steve is about to groan in frustration, instead he stays quiet and makes a positive sound, telling the other boy to keep talking. "We talked about it, Max and me, about our living arrangement once coming back there. She doesn't want to give up on, you know, her college life, campus and everything. She's that kind of kid, I guess, that always wants to try everything, meet people like her and show how cool she thinks she is"

"Can you blame her?" Steve interrupts this time, tone trying to keep it cool. "She is. Cool. She should show everyone"

Billy's nervous laugh fills the space, even though it's low and barely audible: it's more like a feeling growing out his throat and chest. 

"Yeah. I guess" Billy admits and Steve isn't sure he ever said something nice to Max's face about her person. He talks about her to him and the name _Max_ isn't said like it's poison anymore, as much as she always brings his brother up without hesitation: so Steve, as a presence in both their lives, can guess that things are working well between the pair, after all the bad things that happened. Even now that she knows about the boys secret and Billy didn't protest too much, when Steve confessed he was the one telling her by accident. "We talked about her staying in her dorm, but we agreed on looking for a place to rent where we can be, you know, around each other. I proposed it to her, she seemed okay with it. Didn't protested" 

"I bet she was _happy_ with it" Steve comments to him quickly, almost resigned to Billy words that always put distance between him and the world. "She's happy to have a brother, to be your sister. Don't be afraid to, you know, others _feeling_ "

There's a moment of silence, heavy, almost religious. Steve's lips purses, when Billy sighs. "When I met her, I think she was excited about the having-a-bother thing. And I'm sure she hoped it could have worked even after I made sure to torment her and show her I was a total psycho. She even covered for me a couple of times with my dad and Susan and I didn't even deserve it. But I can make things right now. It's good for me too, I think" 

"Yeah _,_ it is"

They fall silent again, almost like the conversation ends there, with Billy admitting to trying to make healthier choices, better ones for others and his sake. But Steve knows that the topic may be over, but the conversation is not: he can tell it from the way Billy is breathing and not moving at all, except for his fingers tracing patterns over the other boy's ones. Steve waits and it comes quickly. 

"Are you really gonna move to Chicago?" Billy asks and, well, this isn't the turn he expected the conversation to take. The younger tone tries to stay flattered, but he's trying so hard that his voice falters at some point, letting Steve guess what it could be. Nervousness? Resent? He's not sure, but he's suddenly alert. "I hear you talking to Buckley tonight" 

"We were just-" Steve admits after a moment, he shrugs a bit. " _Talking_ "

"We _talked_ about me moving away too and I'm really gonna leave in a couple of months" Billy whispers and, well, probably isn't his intention, but the words hurt more than Steve would probably like to admit loudly. He feels pathetic, but he also feels like a hundred knives are stabbing him. He's gonna bleed badly. He districate from Billy's warm body and leaves his hands to lay on his back, facing the ceiling, to have some space. He tries to do it as delicately as he can, but Billy must have sensed it and instead of letting him completely go, he turns on his stomach and looks at what he can see of Steve's face, enlightened by the natural light coming from the open window, and with his elbows against the mattress. "So?" 

Steve's stomach turns upside down and, instead of looking at Billy's face, he keeps his eyes steady in front of him. "Yeah, maybe"

"Since when is Chicago an option?" Billy asks, curiosity dropping out of his words. Steve bets he would see him lifting his eyebrows in that shameless judgmental way, if he would look at him. So he doesn't. "I thought you already said you didn't want to move there" 

"No, I didn't say I didn't _want_ to" Steve corrects, not sure Billy's intention is to egotistically make him feel bad. Actually, he thinks he's interested in knowing, even though his tone is too sharp for Steve to think about it as total genuine naiveness. Billy isn't naive. "You made your assumptions. I said I wasn't sure, that I never thought about going to Chicago. Robin proposed it, I'm still considering it. And you shouldn't snoop other conversations''

"I wasn't _snooping_ '' Billy clarifies, tone offended. He rolls on his back again and Steve is left alone, this time. "It happened by accident. If you don't want others to hear, you should talk about it in more private places" 

"We didn't even _talk_ about it" Steve makes sure to say, a moment later. He didn't want to fight again. Those weren't the plans. "She just asked how things are going and if I was thinking about it, or any other places" 

"And you said to her you were considering it. _Chicago_ " Billy whispers. It's barely audible in the silence of the room. "I didn't know" 

It sounds a lot like _you didn't tell me_ and Steve tries to ignore the guilty feeling, because Billy's moving, isn't he? He may have told him everything he's gonna do about it, after and before going to California, about his plans and what he hopes to find there, but, still, he's gonna leave and Steve will have to find a place for himself in the world too, without Billy's constant presence around him. He doesn't want to feel guilty for moving on, he has every right to. 

"What? Should I stay here?" Steve asks. It's rhetorical. "I think it's been enough"

"And, hell, I agree. But-" 

"Thank you-" 

Billy turns his head and looks to Steve, lying next to him without acknowledging his presence by glancing his way. Not even once. "Why are you so on the defensive?" 

"Why are you so interested in what I'm gonna do?" Steve spats and he knows he made a step in the wrong direction, one that will lead them to have a discussion. He didn't want them to, he really didn't want them to, it's just that Billy now seems to want a confrontation. He never wanted one, so why must he start now? Before he can add a _you never cared_ which would hurt both of them even more, Billy fortunately interrupts him. 

"Because for the past months you avoided talking about what's gonna happen now" he says flatly, obviously. "Do you really think I didn't notice? You avoided talking about me moving away or about anything related to what you gonna do now. Every time I tried to bring it up, you changed the topic. And then tonight I heard you telling Buckley that you are actually thinking about leaving for fucking Chicago. You didn't tell me, but you told her"

"She's my friend" Steve answers simply.

"I thought I was your friend too" Billy says frankly, not really letting any emotion out of his words. But he sits in the middle of the bed and straightens his posture, looking down at Steve. He can see his expectant face. Expectant about him making the wrong choice of words. "You always tell that, when I'm the one being difficult" 

"It's different. And I'm not being _difficult_ "

"How different" Billy asks, clearly wanting to push Steve's patience and steadine, and ignoring his last statement. "Is it because we are having sex? What? Rules apply differently between the two of us. I have to talk to you, but you don't have to talk to me" 

Steve, this time, sits abruptly and when he faces Billy's eyes there's a thunder going through his irises. He can see that even in the darkness. 

"Do you want to know why I didn't tell you?" Steve asks almost too hard to sound like himself, he tries to recollect from it. But Billy doesn't even flinch and when the other boy's voice lowers he knows it was just a moment. Steve never raises his voice: he can use a serious steady one, but he never shouts. That's not him and Billy knows it. That's been him, in the past. "I didn't because I don't want to actually go to fucking Chicago. But I don't have another place where I want to go so badly like you do, okay? You have California, your plans, your old friends and your sister and good for you. I'm actually happy. But for you. Not for me. I don't have plans, I don't have a place where I want to go, I don't have ambitions, I don't have people I see myself spending my future with, because they are the ones not seeing their future with me first. And that's terribly pathetic at twenty-one. So, yeah, Chicago. At least there's someone I know and that wants me there and maybe things would get better than here, I won't be completely alone"

"You're not someone who could live in Chicago" Billy says, in the end, using a tone that should be almost offensive for whoever lives in Chicago. "And what you said about yourself-" 

"Everything is true" Steve concludes. "I'm not brilliant, I didn't apply for college, I don't see me doing any life changing job. The only friendly faces here are the kids, but they will leave for college in months and it's not like we spend much time together anymore. And you… You planned to leave for years now. How could I ask you to not?" 

Billy tries to interject, but Steve stops him. 

"I can't and, frankly, I won't" the older assures, like he thinks the other was starting to protest. "I don't have any right to ask you. And, even if I would, I would be a total asshole asking you to no, whether you planned it for years, or just days. I can't do that. This place is a mess and you need to get out of here. And I'm pretty much just jealous of you like a four year old. Because you have your plans and you're thinking about where you're gonna live, who you gonna spend time with... And, yeah, I'm jealous of you. Of that. Because we were the two left behind and suddenly you are gonna have a new life, leaving me here. Alone. At this point, the jealousy turns into guilt because you've been to hell and back and I'm here complaining about you being happy about your future, which you deserve. I just want that too and-"

"Steve-" 

"And I'm jealous of you in the other way too. The worst one" Steve continues. "You will leave and you'll probably even forget about Hawkins and Steve Harrington and you'll meet new people and maybe you'll let yourself finally go and someone else will tell you they like your scars. Maybe, now I can see that, you were right when you tried to stop seeing each other months ago. It would have been easier for me. I just didn't really want to think about it or stop seeing each other and now I'm paying the price and-"

"Can you shut up for a second?" Billy asks and Steve flinches, shutting his mouth. The younger eyes are softer than he expected from his tone, but they seem so dark tonight. He swallows. "Why do you think I tried to talk to you about California in the past two months, when I just told you I saw you were clearly avoiding the topic? Do you think I did it on purpose?" 

Steve isn't sure he should answer, but he looks for a couple of words anyway, when Billy looks flatly at him. He's studying him, but from outside he could look just… Bored. Steve shrugs, a bit uncomfortable.

"I don't know" he admits weakly. 

"Did you think I did it just because I _wanted_ to talk about it? Like I didn't consider your feelings?" Billy asks and there's definitely an accusation in his words and, maybe, Steve feels a bit guilty for thinking what Billy just said. 

"Yeah, maybe" he admits in the end. "I mean. Not the part where you weren't considering my feelings. I didn't really think about it. But, yeah, I thought you wanted to just talk about it and I didn't feel like facing it. The less I thought about, the less I felt-" 

"Left alone?" Billy concludes with a question and Steve forgot that he's quiet, but he sees everything. He bets he knew about Steve's feelings, even before he poured his heart out. The older, sitting on the mattress, turns his face towards the window and observes out. Billy quickly calls him back to him. To reality. "I tried to talk to you about California, because I wanted to ask you to leave with me. And Max. But she would be in college, so it would be just us and-"

"What" Steve spats in the middle of Billy's rambling and his neck almost cracks from the sudden abrupt movement of his head. When the boy's eyes lock, they stay in silence for a moment. 

"You're free to say no" 

"I don't l even understand what you're talking about" Steve admits and he doesn't want to misunderstand the other's words. 

"I wasn't sure at first" Billy is tentative, clary uncomfortable about finally talking properly about that. He looks down to the mattress between them with a hard stare. "But, I mean, we both want to leave and I could use some company, it's not like I know California anymore. It will be like starting again, so I thought about asking you and, you know, see how it goes. Together. I mean, we should still say we are friends, but California is much cooler about that too, but it's better if we keep it secret anyway" a breath, a moment of silence. "It's just an option I'm offering you to consider. I won't try to make you change your mind, if you would like to go to Chicago or to any other sad city" 

Steve observes Billy and now he's sure to get what the latter means with his long speech and his unsure words and the former's heart turns upside down a couple of times. 

Steve never really considered California. It's always been Billy's place, not Steve's: it was always unfair to even think of it, almost like it belonged to Billy and Billy's only. His safe place in which Steve never felt contemplated, so he never dared to consider it a place where running to. Not even alone. Suddenly, it's like a storm of thoughts is invading his personal space and he grabs the sheets between their bodies, in a nervous gesture. 

"How long did you think about it?" he asks, when the other finally looks up, his jaw squeezed tight. He's afraid of being rejected, so he's working hard to not give himself away. Steve would like to tell him to stop that, to be on the defensive, but it would be hypocritical of him, considering he was the one on the defensive a couple of moments ago. 

"A while" he admits with a shrug. "I know you think I'm gonna go back to Cali and start from where I left, but that's not gonna happen. I haven't heard from my friends for years now, I can't stay at my mom's for long and I won't have anything, no familiar faces, no house, no job. So it could be a start for both of us. I know you're scared of being alone and… _Left behind_ , but not everyone wants to do that to you, you know"

"Don't you?" Steve asks, curiosity in his words. "If I'm not going to accept, you will try to… See me anyway?" 

"I didn't really want to think about that possibility, actually. I hoped you would have just packed your things and moved away from that shithole with me" Billy admits. He shrugs. "But, maybe, yes. I could think of something"

Steve doesn't want to cry, so he tries to not do it. But his eyes are making everything difficult, turning watery, while feeling his heart pounding fast in his chest.

"What about… Living there?" he asks with his breath short. "Did you planned that too, or-" 

"Don't make it sound like I'm a maniac of planning" Billy defends himself. "I didn't want to ask you without having thought about it properly. It was even riskier. And you _and I_ would have freak out" 

"I'm freaking out" 

"I know. Your face looks like you're about to pass out" Billy jokes, but his smile is tired. "What I said about me going with Max and looking for a place where I can stay is true. But I thought that maybe, if you're gonna say yes, we could look for an apartment with two bedrooms of course and share. It would look like we are just friends" 

"So we won't sleep together?" Steve asks, but he's teasing because he's actually a rollercoaster of emotions at the moment. And joking seems the easier way to face the situation. It's that, or crying. 

Billy let's a little low laugh escape from his throat. He ignores Steve tease, so maybe he's serious about this whole new situation and he doesn't want to joke about it. Not now. "What do you say" 

"I never thought about moving to California" Steve admits leaving the smile behind. He swallows. "Or about me moving with you"

"Do you have another place where you want to go?"

"No, but-" 

"So leave with me" Billy insists and he takes Steve's hand in his, before turning them and making their palms fit together. Steve blinks at that, surprised. Then he looks up to Billy's focused eyes, already on his interlocutor's ones. "In two weeks I'm gonna drive Max to her college and then we will be back for another month or so. Then we could just pack our things and leave this place. California is warmer, it's much cooler than Hawkins. There's nothing for us here. What do you think" 

Steve takes a breath to give him an answer, but nothing comes out of it and he can just squeeze Billy's warm hands on his own. This is a crazy idea and Steve never did anything really crazy, not anything like that: except for the monsters part, which he didn't ask for, he never really lived recklessly, he never did the type of crazy things that make parents mad. The craziest things he did were inviting friends to have parties when his mom and dad were away for work and probably apply for college after school. But still, nothing really reckless until Barb's death, at least, but it's also where the part with monsters starts and he always tends to see the upside-down as an external event to his life. That shouldn't have even happened, in the first place. 

Them sitting on his mattress, instead, is something more real and that would surely drive his parents out of their minds, even more when he will announce his moving from Hawkins for the city of the sun with the company of a boy and a plan of living probably something closer to day by day. Definitely lighter, not really easier, than Hawkins. 

His heart pounds fast in his chest and Billy's lips are even warmer than his hands, when Steve crashes their lips together. 

He hopes he gets the answer. 


End file.
